


Written in the Scars

by SG_PANDA



Series: Danny Phantom and Peter Parker Crossovers [1]
Category: Danny Phantom, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Flirting, Clockwork is Danny's parent now, Danny and Peter are the main characters but also not, Danny has wings but it's not a major plot point, Danny's biological parents suck, Exposition, Gen, I completely changed Danny's background so beware, I don't even pretend it's dialogue there's so much exposition, I mean they are but they also aren't, I sound like the box ghost sheesh, I use mythos from other stories just slanted a little to fit my nefarious purposes, Literally no canon compliance here at all, M/M, Multi, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, So much angst, This is going somewhere I swear, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony just wants to be everyone's parent okay, also I put a Blue Bloods character in there for like a hot sec it's fine, and Time Travel, and Vlad is sort of morally gray, and ghosts, and he's trying his best, and hurt, and the avengers are useless, and villains, anyway, between Danny and Peter, but he has overprotective ghost parents so it's okay, but he still has very twisted ideas about things, but it's okay cause Danny will save them, but most of this is from my twisted imagination, but now it's EVERYTHING, but there's lots of comfort and fluff to go with the hurt, ghosts attack NYC, he genuinely loves his daughter, how many things can I stuff into one fic?, if you hate exposition this story is not for you, it's about everyone, it's an Avengers fic there's stuff about the other Avengers, it's fine don't think about it too much, just let it happen it's fine, like Mortified by FiveRivers because it's too good not to use, lots of explanations seriously there's so many I cannot emphasize this enough, lots of them actually, lots of time travel, oh also Desiree from Danny Phantom is going to be like a good guy basically, or should I say Phantom?, seriously the burn is so slow I'm surprised the fire didn't go out, so so much exposition, somewhat dark!Danny, there are other people too but you don't know them yet, there are so many sort of background characters it's fine, they're so so awkward, this is my fantasy world where they like each other okay, this started as a nice slow burn romance, this story is evolving uh oh, we're going to find out, weird ghost biology, world building and explanations, world building in progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28476825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SG_PANDA/pseuds/SG_PANDA
Summary: Danny Fenton didn't have a good childhood. Your parents forcing you to fight ghosts when you're four will do that. After he becomes half ghost? Well, that didn't exactly go over great. Peter Parker hasn't had these powers for very long. He's known Tony Stark for even less time, and the man is already offering him a suit, of the Spider-Man variety. Peter isn't sure how to feel about that. When ghosts attack NYC, Peter isn't sure what he's supposed to do. The other Avengers aren't, either. They seem doomed, until a ghost boy shows up to save the day.Danny and Peter are idiots, and oblivious. This has become painfully obvious.The screens flicker around his life, laughing with that same Princess of Wakanda, holding hands with a boy in a superhero suit and a mask, leaning against his orange haired older sister on the bottom bunk of a twin bed, in a living room surrounded by siblings and friends and laughing, and lastly, images of him alone, falling through a portal, fighting in a war that shouldn’t have been his, sitting on a throne of ice while snow falls around him.
Relationships: Clockwork & Danny Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Original Female Character(s), Danny Fenton & Tony Stark, Danny Fenton/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Danny Phantom and Peter Parker Crossovers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085804
Comments: 58
Kudos: 230





	1. Life in the Fenton House

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in roughly the same universe as my Wings and Other Short Stories one shot work. After much debate, I did put them in a series together, even though the universes have some differences. The one shots were meant as more of a workshop for the worldbuilding, and so there are differences between that and this. If you're coming from that story, hello! I hope you enjoy this one! Also, I said this in the tags, but there's exposition in this. So much exposition. But it's, like, fun exposition. At least, I think so. I may be biased.

_ Chapter 1: Life in the Fenton House _

Danny Fenton’s first memories were not pleasant ones. He was small in them, of course. And being trapped in an enclosed space with a deformed ghost and a blaster? That just made him feel even smaller.

“Dodge left, son!” his father called.

“Take it out already!” his mother added.

Danny breathed heavy and jumped out of the way, crying. This ghost was  _ scary  _ and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do and everyone was yelling at him and he didn’t like it.

“Crying won’t get you out any faster!” his mother called.

That didn’t stop Danny from crying. He rolled, dodged, and ran. He shot the deformed ghost thing with his blaster again, and it finally dissipated with a noise Danny would never be able to get out of his mind. He collapsed to the floor and cried into his hands. The door clicked open.

“You need to work on your technique,” his father chided.

“Make sure you shower before you come up for dinner,” his mother added.

Then they left him crying. A few minutes later, quiet footsteps sounded on the stairs and Jazz walked into view.

“Come on, little brother, let’s get you up. I can wrap that cut on your elbow for you after you shower,” Jazz coaxed, walking into the room with him.

Danny sniffled miserably. Jazz sighed and sat next to him on the floor, putting an arm around his shoulders.

“They just want what’s best for us,” she whispered. 

“I know,” Danny agreed, sniffling again.

Jazz sat with him for a little while longer before urging him to his feet. Once he had showered, she wrapped his elbow. And life in the Fenton House went on.

* * *

Danny couldn't pinpoint exactly when Tucker Foley came into his life. As far as he could remember, Tucker had always been there. Even though Danny was a Fenton, and that meant he was an outcast and a little scary and a lot weird, Tucker was there. Danny wasn’t sure he understood it, but they were best friends. That was just how it was, and that's how it had always been. Danny really, really hoped that was how it would always be.

Danny and Tucker met Sam Manson in second grade. She was bossy, and she wore pink even though she hated pink, and she huffed around the room most of the time. She seemed to be just as much outcast as Danny, and by association Tucker, were. Neither Danny nor Tucker knew why this would be, but it was. At some point, Sam Manson became the third in their trio. And it worked.

The first time Sam came over, she was fascinated by Danny’s family, their ghost gear, the lab. Tucker and Danny steered her away from it, but it was an obsession that would long affect them. They met his parents and Jazz, and life in the Fenton House went on.

* * *

Danny, older now, was in that same room. Now, there were three ghosts. He rolled, ducked, dodged, and shot with practiced ease.

“Good form. Make sure you keep your shoulder tucked on the rolls,” his mother called.

“Your aim has improved, but make sure you keep an eye on all your enemies,” his father added.

Danny huffed, and, now much too old to cry during this exercise, took their advice to heart. He tucked his shoulder on the roll, and he forced himself to glance around to make sure all his enemies were in his sight. He had two shots on the green one and the blue one, but only one on the purple one. He needed to even it out before he could take them all down. He took another shot at the purple blob, missed, swore to himself as he dodged. A few minutes later, however, found all the ghosts blown to pieces and Danny on his way to take a shower before dinner. 

He met Jazz on his way up the stairs. She tossed him a grin as she wrangled her hair up, on her own way to training. Her mostly black jumpsuit was stark and tight against her pale skin, mirroring Danny’s mostly white jumpsuit against his own tan. He high fived her in passing, a joke they’d had since they were young. It was a tag off. For the training, for the pain, for the work. It said, “I’m in, it’s my turn, you can rest now.” And life in the Fenton House went on.

* * *

This time the fight wasn’t in training. Ghosts didn’t often come to Amity Park, especially since most that had were taken by the Fentons. This ghost was, apparently, an exception. Maddie and Jack weren’t even there. They were working on the portal, always the portal. Ever since Jazz had turned sixteen and Danny fourteen, they had left any ghost hunting missions to them for the most part. Danny and Jazz were perfectly equipped to handle it well, after all. 

Jazz high fived Danny as they got out of the Ghost Assault Vehicle. Danny chuckled as he hauled his blaster out behind him.

“Tag in, huh? Think whatever ghost this is will actually take both of us?” Danny joked.

Jazz, her own preferred weapons now in their holder, slammed her door shut. She shrugged, the crossing batons on her back shifting with the movement.

“Probably not, but you never know. Plus, you’re the long range fighter,” Jazz answered. Then, she wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You know how I feel about blasters.”

Danny rolled his eyes and chuckled as they walked. Jazz had hated blasters, ever since they were kids. She preferred her batons that, with the push of a button, could extend into staffs. She had always been better at close contact fighting than Danny, anyway. They both became more serious as they saw three animal ghosts attacking a group of civilians. 

They didn’t have to communicate verbally. Danny took a knee and started shooting while Jazz dove into the fray, batons in hand, shooing the civilians out of the way. The civilians ran, making Danny and Jazz’s job significantly easier. Danny watched Jazz’s back, using his blaster whenever Jazz wove out of the fray for a split second. They had fought together like this since they had been kids, and since the ghosts were relatively weak, it was easy to take them out. Danny and Jazz returned home in the GAV, got absolutely no acknowledgement from their parents, and went to shower before dinner. And life in the Fenton House went on.

* * *

Danny’s parents had been building a portal for a very long time. Jazz and Danny, well, they didn’t entirely understand why their parents would want to open their world to more ghosts. Ghosts were evil, mindless, soulless creatures, after all. That’s what their parents always said, at least. Jazz had never believed it, and as Danny got older, he wasn’t sure he did either. But with their parents, compliance was always best. No one needed to tell the siblings that for them to know.

So, when the portal didn’t work and their parents were devastated, Danny and Jazz weren’t entirely sure what to do. Sam, on the other hand, had an idea. She had always been fascinated with the lab, after all.

“Come on, Danny, just take a look inside,” Sam cajoled.

Danny turned to Jazz for assistance, but his older sister just shrugged. Sam had been pushing this for the better part of an hour, and Danny was getting tired of it.

“Make sure you unplug it first,” Tucker chimed in helpfully.

Danny, grumbling, unplugged it. Then he walked into the portal. Even without it being plugged in, though, there were still about a million exposed wires. Danny tripped, stumbled, but caught himself along the wall. A button depressed under his fingers. This couldn’t be good.

Someone was screaming. It took Danny a moment to realize it was him. Then, the pain hit, and the screaming ended.

Danny’s first thought when he came to was that he was  _ really glad  _ his parents were gone for the weekend. His second thought was that his hand was see through. Wait, his hand was see through. That couldn’t be right, could it?

“Danny?” Jazz called, tentative.

It was only then that Danny realized he was still inside the portal, laying on the floor. He hauled himself upright, which was far easier than it should have been, and drifted out.

“I think,” Tucker said, sounding ill, “I think something went wrong.”

There was a click as Sam plugged the portal back in. Behind Danny, it flared green. In the dim lighting, Danny took in his appearance in a mirror across the lab. White hair. Green eyes. Black suit. Oh, and his feet weren’t touching the ground. Yeah, Tucker, something went wrong.

“Are you….?” Jazz asked, trailing off, her voice trembling.

“A ghost?” Danny asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “I think so.”

Jazz stumbled, but to Danny’s surprise, it was  _ towards  _ him and not away. He blinked, then a flash burned his eyes and something in his chest  _ ached  _ and he was falling. Jazz caught him.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Sam mused.

Danny snorted, looked down at his now human self.

“Interesting is one word for it,” he agreed.

And life in the Fenton House went on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first, like, five chapters of this are seriously just like exposition. I'm sorry, but also not really. I do not have anyone as of now to proofread this for me, so if you come across any mistakes please let me know so I can fix them. Also, if anyone is interested in proofreading this for me before I post chapters, just give me a holler. Help would be greatly appreciated, and you'd get chapters early. On the subject of chapters, this does not currently have an actual update schedule. I don't do update schedules. But I do my best to post somewhat consistently and to give a heads up if a story is going to be sitting unworked on for a million years. I make no promises, but I do my best. If you're still reading this, thanks! See you next chapter.


	2. The Lives of a Spider and a Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, we check in with Peter and Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters? In the same week? Apparently so. Because Shutterfly apparently hates me and for some reason my brain thought a good solution to that was to publish this. Idk man, my brain is weird. Anyway. Here's a chapter.

_ Chapter Two: The Lives of a Spider and a Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist _

To say Peter Parker was surprised when Tony Stark showed up in his living room would be an understatement. It was sort of like saying there were just a few stars in the sky. It was closer to millions of stars, and Peter's reaction was closer to a complete mental breakdown. Shock, excitement, fear, worry, curiosity, Peter felt it all. His heart raced, his palms sweated, his senses buzzed and hummed and sang. It took everything he had to have a fake conversation with Mister Stark and May before Mister Stark came into his room. His  _ bedroom.  _ His idol was just standing there, looking around. Finally, he turned to Peter.

“So, just to get the record straight, this is you, right?” Tony asked, projecting a hologram of Spider-Man stopping a bus.

“What? No, that’s crazy,” Peter argued. It wasn’t very convincing.

“I just evacuated a city that an evil robot I helped create was about to drop out of the sky to destroy the Earth, kid. I don’t think ‘crazy’ means much anymore,” Stark answered, joking.

“Why are you asking?” Peter asked, taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

Stark shrugged. “After the incident in Sokovia, it’s become abundantly clear to me that we need more heroes in the world. More good ones, at any rate. There should be heroes closer to ground, watching people’s backs. I think you’re already one of them, and I’d like to help you out. Your suit is  _ killing me, _ ” Stark complained, studying his fingernails.

“You want to make me a suit?” Peter whispered, awed.

Stark grinned at him. “Yeah, kid. First, can I ask why you’re doing this? The whole superhero gig, I mean.”

Peter sighed, shrugged. “Because….because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers for six months. I read books, I build computers. And yeah, I would love to play football, but I couldn’t then, so I shouldn’t now.”

“Sure,” Stark interrupted. “Cause now you’re different.”

“Exactly,” Peter agreed. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “But I can’t tell anybody that, so I’m not. Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…they happen because of you.”

Stark was leaning forward now, watching him, contemplating.

“So you wanna help. Look out for the little guy, make the world a better place, all that?”

“Yes,” Peter agreed.

“Oh, and how does that webbing stuff work? The tensile strength of that stuff must be through the roof,” Stark said.

Peter grabbed a web shooter and tossed it to him. “These are the web shooters. I made them. The web fluid I made in chemistry.”

Stark studied the web shooters for a moment, grinned, tossed them back. “Good design. Could I take some of that web fluid to study? Promise I won’t patent it,” Stark joked, holding his hands up in surrender.

Peter choked on his spit, his face red, but provided Stark with a jar of web fluid. Stark chuckled and stood.

Stark nodded, coming to a decision. “Your suit will be here in a week or so. I’ll be sure to incorporate this,” he said, holding up the web fluid. “Keep doing what you’re doing, kid.”

And with that, Stark grinned at him and walked out.

Peter stared after him for a long time.

“So, did you get the details worked out?” May asked from his doorway.

Peter startled, nodded slowly. “I- yeah. I think we did. All good.”

May smiled. “Great. How do you feel about Indian for dinner?”

“Yeah, no, that would be great,” Peter agreed, standing.

May grinned at him, and the life of the spider continued.

The suit came in four days. When Peter got back from patrol, it was sitting on his bed, a neatly wrapped package. There was a note on top that simply read:  _ Less than a week, I know. That web fluid is really something, kid. Hope it works out. My number is in here, feel free to call if you have a problem. _

_ -TS _

Peter saved the number in his phone, grinning like an idiot, then went out for a swing. The suit was amazing. And the life of the spider went on.

* * *

A few months later, Peter passed a test he didn’t know he was taking. The Training Wheels Protocol was lifted, and suddenly, his suit was even more amazing. He named his AI Karen, then had her walk him through the tutorial for his new features. There was a  _ tutorial.  _ It was so cool. That night, Peter made contact with Tony Stark for the first time. It was a text message, and all it said was “ _ thank you.”  _ In five minutes, he’d gotten an equally simple reply:  _ “you’re welcome, kid.”  _ And the life of the spider went on.

* * *

Tony Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist himself, was unsure what possessed him to visit the spider kid. He knew his identity, of course. He'd had the kid on his radar ever since he’d shown up. And while what he told Peter about looking out for new superheroes wasn’t a  _ lie,  _ exactly, it wasn’t quite the truth either. Peter was better than Tony could ever hope to be. Even before Tony met him, he knew this for a fact. Watching videos of him doing things like giving an old lady directions or saving kittens from a storm drain or helping little kids cross the street made that abundantly clear. He was the sort of good that Tony wished he could be. So Tony visited, he gave him a suit, he gave him his number, and he hoped. When the first message came, months after their first and only meeting, Tony was ecstatic. For a few weeks, he’d been toying with an idea, and now it seemed a little more realistic. So, the day after that message, Tony sent another. 

_ “I thought you might want to make your internship a little more legitimate. There’s a chair open for you in my lab, if you ever want it. Like on this Saturday at 2PM. Let me know what you think.” _

Peter’s response came a few hours later.

_ “I would love to! Leave the window open for me.” _

Tony could swear his heart skipped a beat. Peter was coming to the tower.

And the life of the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist went on.

* * *

After the first few, admittedly awkward, lab meetings, it became commonplace. Soon, Peter wasn’t just working in the lab with Tony. He was watching movies with him and staying for dinner and meeting Pepper and Rhodey and Happy. Somehow, the kid fit in like a pea in a pod. He was smart, at least as smart as Tony had been at that age, maybe smarter. He was awkward and kind and had an amazing sense of humor and made about a million Star Wars references a day. Tony loved every part of it. And the lives of the spider and the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist went on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say I have absolutely no canon compliance in this fic. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. Civil War? We don't know her. This is a happy world where superheroes get along and no one messes it up without my say so.


	3. The Life of a Scarlet Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Fenton was not the first man Maddie had been with. Likewise, Jazz was not the first child Maddie had given birth to. College was a wild time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's where Scarlett comes in, for any of you that have read Wings and may or may not have wondered. She's gonna be a presence in this story for sure, so I figured she deserved a little backstory. So. Much. Exposition. Updated like 2 seconds after I posted it because I forgot the horizontal lines. Scandalous.

_Chapter Three: The Life of a Scarlet Rose_

Maddie Fenton was naïve once, just like most people. To Danny and Jazz, she was always exceedingly smart, courageous, competent, and level headed. But that was Maddie Fenton. Maddie Windsor, as she was known before she married Jack, possessed all those same qualities, but they were tempered by age and naivety.

Consequently, despite common belief, there was a time when Maddie Windsor thought she was in love with Vlad Masters. He hadn’t always been a creep, after all. In college he was charming, charismatic, and intelligent. While not exactly popular, he drew people to him like a satellite. Maddie Windsor was one of those people. That she was infatuated with him was unquestionable. She thought she was in love, and wouldn’t realize until it was too late just how wrong she had been. 

It was almost a week after The Incident. That was what Maddie and Vlad had taken to calling it. What had actually happened was a little too complicated to detail in casual conversation. In the simplest terms, Jack Fenton messed up an attempt to create a prototype ghost portal, it backfired, and Vlad was on the receiving end. He had been in the hospital for a few days before they had let him go, but the scars would always be there. Maddie was with him in his dorm. His roommate was out. They were alone. She was so relieved he was alright.

She was so relieved that she rushed into it. She didn’t think. Usually nothing like that would have happened. If nothing else, Maddie Windsor was very cautious where sex was concerned. Maddie was in college, and she didn’t have time for a child. She wanted children when she was older, and married, and had a home of her own and a steady job. 

Apparently, life had other plans. Maddie felt stupid, of course. She should have paid more attention. Been more cautious. But she got caught up in the heat of the moment, and now she had to face the consequences. Her first idea was to do the proper thing. Marry Vlad, settle down, and raise a family. Vlad had ended that line of thought pretty quickly. That just drove Maddie away. They were both only eighteen, of course, and that was young to get married, but he could have at least _helped_ her. Maddie considered abortion, but quickly dismissed it. She supported women’s right to make that choice for themselves, but she wasn’t sure she could live with it.

In the end, she settled for adoption. The organization gave her a whole packet of potential parents, and she finally narrowed it down. They were a middle aged couple with three children, two boys that were older, and one younger girl, only two years old. They had experience and a steady lifestyle that Maddie found comforting when it came to raising her child, and they would love her as much as their own children. The idea of her daughter having a sister so close to her own age to grow up with was comforting, too. In the end, that was all Maddie could really ask for. 

It was with teary eyes and a gentle kiss on the forehead that Maddie gave up her newborn daughter. She had written her a letter to read when she was older, and her adoptive parents had promised to give it to her. The only other thing Maddie had given her daughter was a first name: Kendra, after Maddie’s own mother. Maddie hoped Kendra would be happy, and desperately hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. And the life of the scarlet rose began.

* * *

“Kendra, hurry up, we need to get moving if we’re gonna get there on time!” Winter Paris yelled impatiently.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Kendra Rose Paris called. It was almost the end of the summer before her freshman year of high school.

As she spoke, she came stumbling into the front room of the house. She was hastily tugging at her not quite shoes, trying to do no one knew what. Winter rolled her eyes and twirled her keys in her fingers impatiently. Kendra had, after much effort, _finally_ cajoled Winter into chaperoning her and her friends at an outside concert festival they had been dying to go to all summer. Personally, Winter didn’t really get it, but she loved her little sister enough to see how much it meant to her and agree.

“Ready!” Kendra declared, breathless. 

She breezed out the door before Winter and Winter followed, locking up the house after them. Winter eyed Kendra’s outfit with an eye roll. She wore a red vest top with black detailing that hugged her body and fake tied at the waist with stretchy elastic. Her short blonde hair fluttered messily about her head and her brown eyes were wide with anticipation. Winter swung into the driver’s seat and set out.

“I still don’t get those leggings-that-are-also-shoes things,” Winter said. The clothing item in question was a pair of black and red patterned leggings that wrapped down over Kendra’s feet in place of shoes.

Kendra huffed. “They’re like the in thing at this festival, trust me. This festival is all about weird,” she answered with utmost confidence. Winter just rolled her eyes again. 

After picking up Kendra’s two best friends, Maya and Stella, they arrived at the festival. True to Kendra’s word, everyone did seem to be wearing the same impractical bottoms as her, though the tops varied greatly. 

The music festival, as it turned out, was as vaguely amusing and somewhat headache inducing as Winter thought it would be. It was what came after the festival that was notable. Kendra, Maya, and Stella chatted animatedly in the backseat as she drove. They stopped for dinner, and when they got back to the car, Kendra _changed._ Red rings of light appeared around her midsection and moved over her body, one up and one down, and then off over her head and feet before disappearing. And Kendra was different. The color changes were the most obvious. Her skin had gone from its normal, healthy tan to a pure _white._ Her usually light blonde hair was crimson red, and her brown eyes were an unnatural, glowing violet. The colors on her clothes had switched as well, with all the red parts changing to black and all the black parts changing to red. It was, simply, entirely unnerving and completely unexpected. It was only after the initial observation that Winter, Maya, and Stella noticed the other part of it. Kendra was _glowing._ Her eyes were backlit, and her skin let off a subtle aura entirely its own. Winter suppressed the urge to scream. Instead, she raised an eyebrow with a façade of calm.

“Any explanations?” she asked. 

Kendra frowned, looked down, looked around. She held her hand up in front of her face and studied it carefully. Then the other one. Finally, she pursed her lips and shrugged.

“No idea. But I don’t feel normal. I’m not tired anymore. I feel...like I could fly.”

Then, Kendra’s lips quirked up in a little half smile, and she _jumped._ And then it was, exactly as she had said, her flying. She was unsteady in the air at first, but after a moment she seemed more centered. No one else knew what to say. And the life of the scarlet rose went on.

* * *

Kendra was fifteen when she read her biological mother’s letter to her. It was long, and most of it was about her conception, her mother’s struggle with giving her up, and her hopes for both Kendra’s future and her own. There was valuable information about her life, about her biological father, one Vlad Masters, and about ghosts. Up until that point, Kendra had never even considered that’s what she could be. At least, partly. It had taken her time, but she’d gotten her transformations under control, learned a little about her powers. Flight, invisibility, intangibility. She chose an alias for herself: Scarlett Rose. While not particularly creative, it worked out well, and she liked the sound of it. It wasn’t long after reading that letter that Scarlett started training with one Vlad Plasmius. And the life of the scarlet rose went on.

* * *

Kendra Paris Scarlett Rose was still fifteen when a natural portal into the Infinite Realms, also known as the Ghost Zone, established itself over her hometown and ghosts started coming through. Vlad helped her beyond her training, helped her fight them off and taught her how to open portals to throw ghosts back into them. Eventually, Scarlett realized how manipulative and controlling Vlad was. She told him she didn’t want him to train her anymore, didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Vlad, surprisingly, accepted her decision and left her be. 

After that, she started relying more heavily on her siblings. Winter was the only other one still at home, but her brothers still lived in the same city. Alexander, the oldest, was an electrical engineer. Sebastian was two years behind Alex, and he was a biochemical engineer. They all knew her secret, though their parents still did not. Alex, Bash, and Winter all worked on different ghost fighting weapons and defenses for her to use, though Bash was the only one that had much success. 

It was sophomore year, after Kendra had settled into her ghost fighting and school balance, that it happened. There was a new counselor at her school, Miss Spectra, and she was Kendra’s assigned counselor. As if that wasn’t enough, her office was an ice box, and Kendra always left feeling worse than when she’d arrived. It took time, but eventually, Kendra found herself at a breaking point. She changed forms and retreated to the Realms.

This was when Scarlett learned that there’s a noise distressed ghost children make. When they’re at their breaking point and they’re lost and they’re hurt, there’s a noise. It’s an instinctual thing, not quite a scream, but not quite a wail either. Lots of ghosts call it a keen, but officially, it doesn’t have a name. That was the noise Scarlett made, floating in the Realms, curled in on herself in a ball. There were a lot of ghosts that responded, but the first was a four armed greek ghost named Pandora. And the life of the scarlet rose went on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's Scarlett. Also, Happy New Years! Very belatedly! Seriously, I literally posted on New Year's Day and forgot to say that...it's 2021 now? For real? My brain is still in October. Also I just posted 3 days in a row? This is not normal people, don't get used to it. The little writing goblin in my brain has been working overtime. As always, if you saw any mistakes in the story, please let me know! See you next chapter!


	4. The Life of a Phantom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny is half ghost. This is strange. He's doing his best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done with the "life of" chapters. I swear. New things are going to start happening soon. Also, happy Wednesday, because Wednesday needs a little spice in my opinion.

_ Chapter Four: The Life of a Phantom _

Danny hadn’t been in the Realms much since the portal had been opened. In fact, he had done his best to actively avoid any and all use of his ghost half. He was perfectly capable of fighting as a human, thank you very much. Granted, his ghost half didn’t seem too happy about that plan. Jazz said it wasn’t healthy for him to separate his ghost half from his human half like that, but it was hard not to.

As much as Danny had always been skeptical of his parent’s views on ghosts, mostly thanks to Jazz, they were still deeply ingrained in his psyche. They were things that had been drilled into both him and Jazz as facts from the time they were kids. Conditioning like that couldn’t just be  _ ignored.  _ So, no matter how hard Danny tried, it was hard for him to think of his ghost half as part of him. As himself, instead of as something foreign, and strange, and dangerous and scary. Every time he accidentally phased through something or turned invisible as a human, he loathed himself for it. He knew that Jazz was right, that the way he thought about it wasn’t healthy, but he didn’t know how else to think about it.

Then the first intelligent ghost came through the portal. Her name was Lunch Lady, and she was very intent on changing the menu back to what it had been. Danny and Jazz pulled her into the thermos and put her back into the Realms, but it was an eye opening experience for Danny. She had been  _ intelligent.  _ And, while her intentions and methods were a little strange, they weren’t inherently violent. Not really. In her own way, she was trying to help. It was very strange. 

A week later, Jazz and Sam finally managed to convince him to try to learn to use his ghost powers. They started in Sam’s house, because her parents were oblivious and her house was huge. Danny managed to take on his ghost form, then promptly fell intangibly down to Sam’s basement. This was going to take a lot of practice, Danny thought, rubbing his head. And the life of the phantom went on.

* * *

It took a few more months for Danny to gain an acceptable amount of control over his ghost half. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. At some point, Danny had stopped thinking of his ghost half as a separate entity and started thinking of it as just another part of who he was. He didn’t  _ feel  _ any different as a ghost, after all. Well, not much, anyway. But he certainly didn’t have any sudden urges to kill or hurt innocent people. He was still him, just a little more...ghostly.

It was around that same time that his mother finally perfected the ghost proof food that she had been working on. At first, Danny ate it, and he was fine. Until later that night when he spent the whole night on the bathroom floor, puking his guts out, with a raging fever. He stopped eating at home.

Somehow, not eating at home led to not eating at school, either. He didn’t even notice it was happening until Sam pointed it out, and even then…

“I’m not hungry,” he insisted, pushing Sam’s sandwich back at her.

“You need to eat,” Sam rebuffed, pushing the sandwich towards him again.

Danny shrugged, sighed. “I’m not being stubborn, Sam. I’m just honestly not hungry. I don’t think I really have been, since I started using my powers.”

That was an unnerving thought. Sam blinked twice.

“Wait, you mean, you don’t have to eat?” she asked, derailed.

Danny shrugged again. “I don’t think so?” he offered. “I don’t  _ feel  _ like I need to, anyway.”

That night, Sam, Jazz, and Tucker weighed Danny on Sam’s bathroom scale. He was the same weight he’d been before the Accident. Jazz even confirmed via google that he was a healthy weight for his height and age. Sam dropped the eating issue, and the life of the phantom went on.

* * *

Danny started fighting ghosts as a ghost. It was easier, so much easier. Until his parents saw his ghost half, that is. Then, things got a little more complicated. 

At least everyone else thought he was a hero. That was nice. As a human, he was afforded a certain amount of respect, of fear, even, for his abilities. As a ghost it was different. People weren’t scared of him the same way they were scared of human Danny.

It was Tucker who suggested the ghost name. After the people in Amity park started calling him “Invis-o-bill”, it was time for a rebranding. So he became Phantom. Jazz thought it was hilarious.

* * *

It took Danny time before he ventured into the Realms. When he did, it was with great caution. The Realms were a strange place, with green swirling ectoplasm and floating doors and landmasses. Somehow, he felt more at home there than he did in his own home. There was something energizing, something alive about the Realms that Danny loved. He had a hard time explaining it to his human friends, but it was there nonetheless. That feeling that meant he was home.

* * *

The Realms were not always a safe place, Danny learned. Walker was particularly determined to throw him in jail for something Danny never quite caught, and there were other dangers there, too. Ghosts that he was enemies with, particularly dangerous debris, things like that. Also, it was  _ huge.  _ Danny was doing his best. And the life of the Phantom went on.


	5. Encounters Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny and Scarlett finally meet. Jazz is a good sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Monday.....technically. At any rate, here's a chapter. It's finally not a "Life Of"! Progress! Granted, this is the first of the "Encounters" chapters, which I currently have 4 of...but still....it's something new. Also, if you think this means the expositions is winding down, let me disillusion you right now. It's not. The exposition never leaves. Half this story is exposition. I warned you.  
> Also, to everyone who has reviewed this, thank you so so SO very much! I get so excited every time I see a review on this story because like...people READ IT...and cared enough to TYPE SOMETHING ABOUT IT....it's great. Very great. And thank you so much for the kudos, I'm so glad people enjoy this!

_ Chapter Five: Encounters Part One _

The first time Danny met Scarlett, he was exploring the Realms. That was how it had started, at least. Now, it seemed more like he was lost in the Realms. Which wasn’t great. Or good. Especially when he was supposed to be home for dinner soon.

Scarlett was drifting through the Realms near her lair when she spotted him. Rumors of Phantom had been spreading in the Realms, and this boy looked a lot like Phantom. White hair, green eyes, jumpsuit. Scarlett wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she started floating towards him.

“You look lost,” a voice sounded next to Danny, and he turned to see who the speaker was.

The ghost wasn’t one he’d seen before. She had bright red hair and purple eyes, and she was wearing some sort of black and red jumpsuit. She was grinning at him, though.

“I am lost,” Danny admitted, sheepish.

“I figured. My name is Scarlett. Where are you trying to go?” she asked.

“Oh, um, I’m Phantom. And I was trying to get to the standing portal I came from.”

Scarlett nodded. “Nice to meet you, Phantom. What’s around the portal you came from? Maybe I can help you find it.”

“Um, Walker’s prison is the closest thing, but mostly it’s just empty space,” Danny offered.

“Ah, the Barrens, then. I know the way. I can show you, if you want.”

“Um, yeah, that would be good. Thank you.”

Scarlett nodded. “Fly with me, Phantom.”

They started moving.

“So, there’s been a lot of noise about you in the Realms recently,” Scarlett said, after a while of silence.

“Oh?” Danny asked, hoping he sounded neutral.

“Yup. They say you’re a good fighter, and you have ghost hunters shooting at you. There’s even a rumor that you’re half human, and maybe you know the ghost hunters somehow.”

“Is there now?” Danny asked, stiffly.

Scarlett regarded him out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, there is. Anyway, I remember what being a new ghost was like. I’m not looking to give you a hard time or anything. Just curious,” she said, casually.

“I see,” Danny said, still off put.

They flew the rest of the way in silence.

Scarlett grew more curious after that. Her own secret of being half ghost was just that, a secret. She had also been around longer than Phantom, though. He was just a kid. She wasn’t sure that justified the spying on him that she was currently doing, but hey, no one ever said she was justified. He was a half ghost kid that was clearly in over his head. Learning that he  _ was  _ half ghost wasn’t surprising. Learning that they shared a biological mother? That was a little more shocking.

The second time Danny met Scarlett, she came out of the portal. He was walking home from school with Tucker and Sam. He looked around, then changed and flew up to meet her, ecto blasts ready. She raised her hands in surrender.

“I’m not here to fight you. I just want to talk,” she announced, drifting down closer to the ground.

“So talk,” Danny demanded, not letting go of his ecto blasts.

“I wondered if you’d let me train you,” she said, calmly.

Danny’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?” he demanded.

Scarlett smiled. “In the Realms, children are very rare, and very precious. You shouldn’t have to fight and struggle against every ghost you meet. You should have ghosts on your team, too. Plus, we’re more alike than you think.”

“I….” Danny trailed off, anger derailed. His ecto blasts fizzled out.

“I’ll think about it,” he promised, finally.

Scarlett nodded. “That’s all I ask. I’ll hang around your portal for a few weeks. Just let me know.”

“Okay, sure,” Danny agreed.

Scarlett gave a little wave and flew off. Danny landed next to Sam and Tucker and changed back.

“That was weird, dude,” Tucker commented.

“I know, right? That’s the ghost I was telling you guys about that showed me how to get back to the portal the other day,” Danny agreed.

“What do you think you’ll do?” Sam asked.

Danny shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know yet.”

His first instinct in such matters was, of course, to ask Jazz. He had barely gotten into the house before he was knocking on her door.

“Come in!” Jazz called.

Danny barged in, slammed the door behind him, and dramatically flopped face down on her bed. He groaned. Jazz raised an eyebrow.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“You know that ghost I told you about? That helped me in the Realms? Scarlett?” he asked.

“I do,” Jazz agreed.

“She showed up on the walk home today and asked to train me. Something about children being precious in the Realms and that I should have ghosts on my team too,” Danny grumbled.

“Do you believe her?” Jazz asked.

“Yes? No? I don’t know?”

“It would help you to have an adult looking out for you. Even if the adult is a ghost. You know I’ll always be here for you, but there are things I can’t do.”

“I know,” Danny agreed, sighing.

“But you don’t know if you can trust her,” Jazz sympathized.

“Yup.”

“She didn’t attack you or anything, did she?”

“No.”

“You could always try it. Start off slow. See if you feel like you can trust her. If you’re comfortable with that, that is,” Jazz offered.

“The thing is, I  _ want  _ her to teach me. There are so many things about my ghost half that I don’t understand, and she seemed sincere. But then I’m worried, what if I’m missing something and I get hurt?” Danny lamented, his face still buried in Jazz’s mattress.

“I could come with you, you know. You and I have taken out plenty of ghosts together. It might be better if I had your back, anyway. At least until you know her better.”

Danny sat up and turned to Jazz, smiling a little.

“That, that could work,” he agreed.

The third time Danny met Scarlett, it was a week later in the Barrens.

“You’re here,” Scarlett exclaimed, happily.

“I am,” Danny agreed.

“So? What did you decide?” Scarlett asked.

Danny smiled. “I’d like you to teach me, but only if you’ll let my sister Jazz come too.”

“Not a problem!” Scarlett exclaimed. 

Then she laughed and clapped and threw her arms around him. Danny found he didn’t mind so much.

* * *

They started out their training in a field outside the city limits of Amity Park. Danny had chosen the location, and Scarlett had seemed happy enough to agree. Jazz was sitting in a lawn chair with a book, her batons strapped over her back. She wasn’t reading yet, though. They were waiting for Scarlett to show up still.

A green portal opened and Scarlett drifted out. The portal closed behind her. Danny waved, somewhat shyly.

“Hey, Scarlett,” he greeted.

Scarlett smiled at him. “Hello, Phantom.”

Jazz stood then and walked over to Scarlett. Scarlett was drifting above the ground a little, and she was taller than Jazz already. This made Jazz’s attempt at an intimidating glare slightly less effective.

“I’m Jazz, I’m Phantom’s older sister. If you hurt him, I  _ will  _ hurt you,” she threatened.

“Jazz, c’mon,” Danny said from behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jazz. If I ever hurt Phantom, I’ll deserve whatever you do to me. Fair enough?” Scarlett asked, with a sad smile.

Jazz was not derailed. “Agreed,” she growled, before stalking back to her lawn chair.

Scarlett turned to Danny, clapping her hands and rubbing them together.

“Shall we get started, then?”

* * *

The consensus, after a month and a half of this, was that Scarlett could be trusted. Danny trusted her after the first week, but Jazz was a lot more cautious than he was. When his older sister finally relented that, yes, she trusted Scarlett, Danny felt it was long overdue.

One the bright side, his lessons then moved from the field outside Amity to various locations within the Realms. Scarlett explained the concept of Lairs, and after a while, they began searching for Danny’s. They found it. He named it Red Willow, after the very ghostly red willow tree that stood at its center.

* * *

It was a few months later that Scarlett introduced Danny to another ghost. She called him her uncle, and his name was Clockwork. He was very old, and powerful, and...kind. He was kind. It was a strange thing for Danny, to meet a ghost other than Scarlett that was kind to him. It was even stranger when, a few days later, Clockwork asked Danny to be his apprentice. Danny said yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you found any grammar/spelling/wording mistakes in this please please please let me know so I can fix it!


	6. Encounters Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny and Peter meet. Finally. Or should I say Spider-Man and Phantom? Eh, same difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They meet! It's happening! Oh goody! This chapter was a lot of fun for me to write, and I hope it's just as much fun for you to read. Oh, also this is the chapter with a random Blue Bloods character in it, heads up. If you have no idea wat Blue Bloods is, it's a cop show....but yeah not knowing that won't make it any harder to understand this chapter. I kind of just threw him in there because I wanted someone to be like "Oh!! I know who that is!"

_ Chapter Six: Encounters Part Two _

Peter was swinging through the city when it happened. There was nothing, and then there was a glowing green portal and there were things streaming out of it. Wait, was that a dragon?

“Karen, call Mister Stark,” Peter ordered, twisting to swing towards the portal.

Stark answered on the second ring. “Kid, what’s up?”

“Mister Stark! Look out the window or something! There’s a portal and there’s these things coming out of it and I think I saw a dragon,” Peter rambled, landing on a roof nearby to get a better look.

“Peter, where are you?” Tony asked, his voice deadly serious.

“Manhattan. I was on my way to the tower. But did you not hear the part where I see a dragon?” Peter answered. He moved rooftops to get a better view, and yeah, that was a dragon.

“I heard, kid. Sit tight, I’m on my way. Everyone else is suiting up,” Tony ordered, and Peter could hear the whir of the suit starting up in the background.

“I can’t just do nothing, Mister Stark!” Peter argued.

“Fine, evacuate civilians or something, then. Just be careful, okay?” Tony said.

“Will do,” Peter agreed, and the call cut off.

Instead of moving right away, he took another moment to watch the  _ things  _ still streaming out of the portal. He wasn’t sure what to make of any of them. Finally, the stream slowed. A shock of black and white that Peter thought was in the shape of a person came out last, and then the portal winked out of existence. A scream sounded from the people on the streets way below Peter, and he swung down to start corralling them away. 

There were still people in the streets when the police rolled up. They started piling out of cars, and the one that Peter assumed was the leader waved him over. He did a mix of swinging, running, and flipping over to the man.

“I’m Sergeant Jamie Reagan, I’m in charge here. What can we do to help? And do you have any idea what these things are?” the officer asked.

“Just help me get people out of here and set up a perimeter however far back seems necessary. Iron Man and the other Avengers are on their way, I was just the closest to the ground. And sorry, but I have no idea what they are either,” Peter answered.

Just then, a boy that was probably around Peter’s age landed next to him. He had shock white hair, a black and white suit, and he was  _ glowing.  _

“They’re ghosts. Or, I guess I should say, we’re ghosts. Cause I’m a ghost too. But, um, none of your weapons will probably do anything. I’m on your side, um, it’s complicated? Anyway, I’m Phantom, nice to meet you and all that. Also, ghosts can phase into buildings so those aren’t really safe. But if it’s any comfort most of these ghosts are a lot more focused on wreaking havoc and not necessarily hurting people. Some of them aren’t really sentient enough to have a real intention,” the boy announced, glancing back and forth between Peter and Jamie Reagan. 

Before either of them had a chance to respond, a ghost, because they were apparently ghosts, dove towards Peter and Jamie. Peter tried to web it, but his web went right through it, and it was still coming-

Phantom shot a green blast out of his palm and the ghost disintegrated. Peter and Jamie stared at him for a moment. He held out his hand and a ring of light passed over it. When it was gone, he held an assortment of objects that Peter couldn’t identify. Jamie shook his head to clear it.

“Ghosts? So, well, any advice?” he asked Phantom.

Phantom shrugged. “Like I said, most of them aren’t inherently violent. If you can get people away, that’s probably the most you can do. Also, your weapons probably won’t do anything and you might shoot each other on accident, so I’d take that into account. Oh, and try to avoid the giant dragon. He does breathe fire. And, well, dodging is probably your best bet honestly. I’ll do my best to keep them off of you, but there’s only so much I can do. Just, well, don’t die, yeah?”

Jamie ran a hand through his hair. “Alright, I can work with that. Thanks.”

Then, he was off, yelling orders and making hand motions. Phantom turned back to Peter with some sort of shining silver belt in his hands and secured it around Peter’s waist. It tightened until it fit, then clicked. 

“That’s a specter deflector. It keeps the wearer safe from ghosts, basically. If you can hit them, it’ll do damage. The weaker ones it might even take out. I only have two on me, so you can decide who the other one goes to,” Phantom explained, holding out another belt. Peter took it and, lacking pockets, put it on too.

Phantom nodded. “Good. I also have a few ghost-” he paused to blast a ghost that was heading for Jamie before continuing, “a few ghost weapons, they’re all pretty simple. Three wrist rays and two lipstick lasers. The wrist rays go on your wrist, you just hit the button to shoot, and the lipstick lasers have a button on the side that shoots a laser out of the red end. I have someone coming with more, but for now, I’m leaving handing those out to you. I need to get in the fight. If you have earpieces for comms or something, patch me in when you can, yeah? Okay, great, good talk,” Phantom finished, shoving the weapons into Peter’s arms and flying off.

Peter put a wrist ray on each wrist, then webbed the remaining weapons to his side. He swung back up and, after a bit of trial and error, figured out how to use the wrist rays and his webs at the same time. There was an alert chime on his suit, then Tony’s face appeared in the upper corner of his vision.

“I’ve been here for a minute, kid, I saw you talk to the police, you have any idea what’s going on?” Tony asked, worried.

“Sort of? They’re ghosts, Mister Stark! One of them came and talked to me and said he’s trying to help us and his name is Phantom and he gave me a few weapons he said will work because let me tell you, my webs are doing  _ nothing  _ to these things, and also I guess we should avoid the dragon,” Peter rambled, navigating the fray and relying heavily on his spider sense and his anti ghost belt.

“They’re ghosts? Ghosts are real? And one of them is on our side? This is insanity,” Tony answered, grumbling to himself.

“Aliens attacked New York, a killer robot attacked Sokovia, anything can happen,” Peter replied, grinning.

“Har har,” Tony deadpanned. “Now, you said something about weapons? Because I got to tell you, kid, my repulsor blasts are doing  _ nothing  _ to these things.”

“Yeah, not many weapons, but weapons. Some wrist rays and little laser things. They all require pushing small buttons, so I’m not sure how they’d do with your suit,” Peter answered.

Finally,  _ finally  _ he spotted Tony in his suit through the fray and started swinging towards him, shooting the ghosts around him.

“I can push small buttons!” Tony argued.

Peter rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I’m giving you a wrist ray so at least you can’t drop it,” he retorted.

Tony spotted him and steered towards a rooftop. Peter landed next to him and quickly transferred one of his wrist rays to Tony, showing him where the button was. It looked hilarious, but Tony seemed able to use it with little issue.

“What did we miss?” Cap asked a moment later, and Peter flinched. Tony noticed. 

“I patched Spider-Man into the coms, he’s working with us on this one. Want to fill them in, kid?” Tony asked.

“Sure thing. So we’re fighting ghosts, the white haired boy is a ghost and he’s on our side. So far only the weapons he gave me have done anything against them. They can fly, turn invisible, and turn intangible, so watch where you point your weapons. I’m on my way to the ground, I’ll give you guys what I can. Also, I have a ghost proof belt?”

“Dibs!” Natasha yelled over the coms.

Peter grinned and located the team on the ground, trying and failing to fight off ghosts. He used his wrist ray to clear a bit of a clearing. He pulled the weapons off his side and pulled the webbing off of them. He fumbled for a moment with the button on the belt, but undid it. 

All the Avengers on the ground turned to him. Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Sam Wilson, James Rhodes, Wanda Maximoff, and Vision. Peter was momentarily surprised to see that Bruce Banner was still, well, Banner and not Hulk. He didn’t say anything about it, though. Natasha was the first to notice him, and she grinned.

Peter pushed aside his hero worship and stepped up to pull the belt around Natasha’s waist and secure it. She held still.

“That’s a specter deflector, it repels ghosts and basically lets you do things like kick and punch them. If they’re weak enough it might take them out,” Peter explained.

“You said you had weapons?” Natasha asked.

Peter nodded and offered her a lipstick laser. “Lipstick laser. Button on the side, shoots a laser out of the red end.”

Natasha took it, shot a ghost behind him, and smiled. “Sold.”

Peter snorted and moved on. Steve was the closest, so he offered him the last wrist ray, with a short explanation. Banner got the other lipstick laser. Peter held his ground for a moment, helping them fight off ghosts. 

“Anyone have an extra earpiece for comms? The ghost that gave us those weapons, Phantom, was asking about it. His input would be helpful,” Peter asked, over the comms.

“I have an extra. Mine gets broken sometimes,” Bruce offered.

“Cool, thanks. He’ll be on whenever I can find him,” Peter promised, taking the offered earpiece and swinging off.

It took him less time than he thought it would to find Phantom in the fray, high up. Peter swung up next to him, waved, and landed on a nearby rooftop. A moment later Phantom touched down beside him. Peter offered the earpiece.

“Comms,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Thanks,” Phantom grinned, taking it and slotting it into his ear.

He flew off, and Peter swung off.

“Hi everybody, my name is Phantom, I’m a ghost, I’m on your side, and now I’m on your comms,” Phantom announced.

“Thanks for the weapons, they’re a big help,” Tony answered.

“I try. My sister is almost here, she’ll have more things you guys can use. I don’t usually carry much because I don’t need it for the most part, but hey, it worked out. So, Spidey, want to help me take down this dragon?”

“Why Spider-Man?” Cap asked.

Phantom chuckled. “Easy, he’s maneuverable, he’s high up, and he’s got the best gear right now. Plus, he’s the first one I met, and he’s cool.”

Peter rolled his eyes, blushing under his mask, but listened as Phantom outlined a plan to take down the giant dragon. While he talked, he swept up ghosts in what looked like a soup thermos. The plan was pretty simple, Phantom would distract the dragon and beat him up while Peter stole his magic amulet and then Phantom would suck him into the soup thermos. Peter thought to himself that his definition of “simple” was probably very different from normal people’s. They spotted the dragon, and the battle began.

Scarlett flew out of her portal over Manhattan and sought out her brother. Assured that Phantom was in one piece, she made a beeline for the Avengers that were all fighting back to back on the ground. She’d have to get the ones in the air later. She touched down in front of them.

“Hello, I’m Scarlett, I’m Phantom’s older sister. I have more ghost fighting tech for you, it looks like you need it,” she greeted, pulling her bag around in front of her.

“Nice to meet you. What have you got?” Barton asked.

Scarlett grinned. “Lots of things. First of all, for you.”

And she tossed him a glowing green quiver full of glowing green arrows. Barton caught it and looked surprised for a moment, then pleased. He shrugged the quiver on and started shooting.

“For Widow,” Scarlett continued, offering Natasha a pair of sleek silver pistols.

Natasha grinned as she took them, cackling like a mad woman when they shot lasers instead of bullets. Scarlett continued handing things out, both on the ground and in the air. Blasters for Vision, Rhodes, and Wilson. Rogers got some sort of disk slapped on his shield that made it glow purple and make contact with ghosts. Maximoff got a pair of what basically boiled down to double sided lightsabers, except for ghost fighting. Banner got a silver and purple thermos with instructions on its use, and everyone except for Natasha got some sort of silver disk stuck on them that seemed to do the same things as Natasha’s belt. With all her goodies distributed, Scarlett flew off and joined the fray.

With all the Avengers now properly armed and Phantom and Peter having taken care of the dragon, the battle de-escalated quickly. Soon, they were finishing with the last remnants of the ghosts, and after that they were done.

“Team meeting real quick! Everyone to me!” Tony called over the comms.

Phantom said something to Scarlett, and soon everyone was gathered around Tony, including the two ghosts. Tony waited for everyone to quiet down.

“So, well, ghosts are real. And apparently we have a lot to learn about fighting them. Phantom, Scarlett, anything you want to say?” Tony asked.

Phantom and Scarlett exchanged a look, then Scarlett took a small step forward.

“You all handled yourselves surprisingly well in my opinion,” she started. “Our world has always been secretive, something more talked about in legend and myth in most places than in real life. Today that’s changed, and that’s going to cause problems. We’re in a time of transition in our world right now, and because of that, things will be more chaotic than they otherwise would be. This means that more ghosts will come through to this world, either to wreak havoc or seek refuge. The peace we’ve maintained with your people is very fragile, and it remains to be seen whether what happened today will break it. Know that Phantom and I, and many others, have no wish for conflict with you. We’ll help you where and when we can, but regardless of what we do, from this point of, things will be different. 

“There are already humans that know of our existence. Not many of them, but some. Many don’t understand us, and some do. Phantom and I can’t give you the kind of perspective on this that you need, but there are some people who can. Their names are Kendra and Winter Paris. Winter produced most of the weapons you all used in this fight. It’s because of this that, regretfully, I have to ask for what technology Phantom and I gave you to be returned to us. It was loaned to us to let you use for this fight, but it’s not ours, and if we don’t return it then it will cause problems for us. I have a card for the Paris Sisters, you can call them and talk to them about getting those weapons on a more permanent basis and ask them any questions you have about the technology.”

Scarlett handed Tony a business card and then retreated. The Avengers all exchanged looks. Peter was the first to take his wrist ray off and offer it back to Phantom. Phantom grinned at him, took it, and threw it in the bag Scarlett had brought. Peter started to take the belt off, but Phantom shook his head.

“You can keep the specter deflectors. Those are actually mine, and I’d feel better if you at least have something to protect you until you can call the Paris Sisters,” Phantom said, mostly to Peter, but he nodded at Natasha as well.

“I guess that’s something,” Tony grumbled.

Phantom rolled his eyes. Slowly, one by one, the Avengers gave up their weapons and the silver disks. Phantom passed the full bag to Scarlett. She gave him a side hug, nodded at the group, and flew off.

“Scarlett can be a little harsh, but she’s right. There couldn’t have been a worse time for this to happen, but well, that’s just how it goes sometimes. Just know that our society is just as complex and varied as yours, if not more so. Just because we’re ghosts, we’re not all evil, and we don’t all have the same intentions. Different ghosts want different things, just like humans do. You need to take that into account when you’re dealing with us, and judge us on an individual basis the same way you would with humans,” Phantom advised.

“We will, I promise,” Cap offered, nodding.

“What he said,” Tony agreed.

“It was fun to work with you, Phantom. I don’t suppose I’ll see you around?” Peter asked, half jokingly.

Phantom chuckled. “You just might, Spidey,” he said with a wink.

“Good,” Peter replied.

Phantom grinned at him then turned to address the group at large. 

“It was good to work with all of you. You handled yourselves well. I might see you around,” he offered.

Then, he waved and flew off, opened a portal, and he was gone.

Peter turned his attention back to the rest of the Avengers.

“Well, that was bizarre,” Bruce offered.

Tony scoffed. “You’re telling me. What are we gonna tell Fury?”

“Good luck with that Mister Stark!” Peter called, swinging off.

The other Avengers laughed behind him while Tony called after him. When Tony stopped talking, right before he swung out of hearing distance, Peter heard Cap ask: “Are we ever gonna get to meet the kid under that mask?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like...sort of maybe becoming a routine?? Updates on Wednesdays?? Idk man I'll try my best but I don't really do update schedules I'm ruled by the annoying little writing gremlin that lives in my head. Also, my battle scene writing abilities are a little sketch, I did my best to keep track of everyone. Let me know if there are any blatant mistakes and I can fix them.


	7. Encounters Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet the Paris Sisters. Spider-Man and Phantom meet again. Tony dies death via VHS tapes. (He's still alive though it's fine)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More exposition. Also, it's Wednesday! Again! That's, like, 3 times in a row! Anyway.

_ Chapter Seven: Encounters Part Three _

Tony had made the call to the Paris sisters, and they had agreed to a meeting. Tony didn’t want  _ everyone  _ there, but he had asked Pepper, Steve, Bruce, and Peter in his Spider-Man suit to come to the meeting. Peter wasn’t entirely sure why he had been invited, but he was excited about it. Very excited about it.

“Kid, you’re gonna break your chair if you keep bouncing like that,” Tony chastised, good naturedly.

Peter shrugged. “We’re meeting real life ghost experts, Mister Stark! I think I’m allowed to be excited!”

On his other side, Steve chuckled. “I would be bouncing, too, if I thought I could get away with it,” he joked.

Tony rolled his eyes.

The door opened and two women walked in, followed by none other than Phantom. Peter bounced more aggressively when he saw Phantom, though Phantom didn’t seem to notice him yet. The first woman had wavy blonde hair and brown eyes, and she was wearing a red button down shirt and black dress pants. The second woman had white blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was wearing the same kind of business dress suits that Pepper liked. 

They walked further into the room, and the adults stood up to greet them. Abashed, Peter also stood.

“I’m Tony Stark, this is Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and Spider-Man,” Tony introduced them all, gesturing as he spoke.

“Spidey!” Phantom interrupted, waving at him excitedly.

“Phantom!” Peter greeted, waving back.

“It’s nice to meet all of you. I’m Kendra Paris, and this is my sister Winter Paris. And I gather you’ve met Phantom,” the one with brown eyes introduced.

“How did you end up in this meeting anyway, Phantom?” Peter asked, once again interrupting the conversation.

Phantom rolled his eyes. “Clockwork, he’s sort of my grandfather but I’m also his apprentice, he sent me. Not sure why, but he always has a reason.”

“That’s very interesting, can we get to the meeting now?” Tony interrupted.

Peter rolled his eyes behind his mask. “Sure, Mister Stark.”

“Why, thank you,” Tony snarked back.

Everyone sat down, Phantom and Peter across from each other at the far end of the table. Kendra sat across from Tony, and Winter sat across from Pepper.

“I’m not exactly sure how this is supposed to work, honestly,” Pepper admitted.

Winter smiled at her. “It’s different with different people. Let’s start with this. We know that the Avengers, with the help of Phantom and Scarlett, defended New York City from a ghost attack. Phantom and Scarlett gave you weapons they borrowed from us to use against the ghosts, and collected them again to return to us when the danger was passed. Scarlett then probably lectured you on something before she gave you our card and told you to call us. Am I right so far?”

“Sounds right to me,” Tony agreed.

“Alright,” Kendra picked up, “so now where we go from here is, what do you want from us? Information on ghosts? Ghost weapons? Both? Neither?”

“Both would be good,” Steve chimed in.

Winter nodded. “Okay. So now we have a starting point. This is the part where we’re usually going from, so there’s sort of a system in place here. The first step is education. There’s a lot to know about ghosts before you can be trusted with weapons that can hurt them. Scarlett and Phantom probably said as much.”

“They did,” Bruce agreed.

“So what next?” Tony asked.

Winter and Kendra exchanged a glance. “Actually, we have a few series of instructional videos you can watch. Usually, we have people watch those and write down questions of their own while they watch, then when you finish the first series we have a meeting and answer your questions, then you get the next series and so on and so forth. There are three series, and each series has ten episodes. Sound fair?” Kendra asked.

“That sounds fair,” Pepper said, quickly, before anyone could protest.

Kendra turned to Phantom. “Could you get the first series from our house? Please?”

Phantom rolled his eyes but floated out of his seat. “Sure, at this point I have a feeling Clockwork sent me to be your errand boy anyway,” he agreed.

He opened a portal with his hand and was gone. A few minutes later, he came back with a box of VHS tapes and set them on the table. The Paris sisters left with Phantom, and as soon as they were gone, Tony groaned dramatically and dropped his head to the table.

“VHS tapes. They’re killing me,” he moaned, dramatically.

Peter laughed. “You’re being overdramatic, Mister Stark.”

“I’m going to die death via VHS tape,” Tony insisted.

Everyone just rolled their eyes.

Peter ended up being the one to scrounge up an old VHS tape player. Tony gathered everyone in the main sitting room to start the series. Pepper was there, too. Peter wore his Spider-Man suit, because most of the Avengers didn’t know his identity. Tony did, of course, and so did Pepper and Rhodey, but they were the only ones. Peter had yet to feel comfortable enough to reveal his identity, even to his superhero sort of teammates. 

“I still hate VHS tapes, they’re so outdated,” Tony complained as Peter pushed the first tape in.

“Stop whining, Mister Stark,” Peter chastised, starting the video and moving back.

“Yeah, Tony, stop whining,” Bruce joked.

Tony huffed, but didn’t respond, because the video had well and truly started. There was a black piece of paper with white writing being held up to the camera. 

_ “Episode 1: The Basics of Ghosts” _

The paper moved out of the way to reveal a boy with messy black hair and sky blue eyes standing in front of a large, rolling whiteboard. The room was otherwise empty, the walls and floor made of dark wood. The boy had a black marker in his hands, and there were a few other colors and an eraser sitting on the lip of the whiteboard. The boy smiled and waved at the camera.

“Hello,” he started. “My name is Daniel Paris. If you’re watching this, I’m sure you’ve met my older sisters Winter and Kendra. I’m also sure you know that ghosts are real. There’s a lot more to it than that, though, so we should get started.”

Daniel turned to the whiteboard and started writing out, in loopy but neat handwriting, “What are ghosts and what can they do?”. Then, he turned back to the camera.

“What are ghosts and what can they do? Up to this point, most of you probably didn’t even know ghosts are real, so you’re probably operating under a lot of guesswork and myth. Simply put, ghosts are supernatural beings made of some combination of energy and a substance called ectoplasm.”

Under “What are ghosts and what can they do?”, Daniel put a dash and “Beings made of energy and ectoplasm.” He turned back to the camera.

“Now, ectoplasm is a complicated topic, and we’ll get more into it later. For now, I’ll just say that it’s a highly energized substance that can be either sentient, non sentient, or somewhere in between. Basically, it’s the most important thing for ghosts to exist. Like I said, we’ll come back to that later.

“Moving on, there are a few things that are constants with all ghosts. All ghosts can turn invisible, intangible, which means they can pass through solid objects, and all ghosts can fly. The skill level at which these powers are used depend on the individual ghost in question. Some ghosts can do these basic powers without thought, and for others even one of these things takes all of their energy.”

Daniel made notations on the board as he spoke.

“All ghosts have at least one obsession. Obsessions, simplified, are the driving force behind a ghost’s actions and way of thinking. For some ghosts, this means that the extent of their sentience is their obsession, or obsessions. For many ghosts, while obsessions are a driving force, they can think and act for themselves much the same way humans can. This all depends on the type and strength of the ghost in question.” More writing on the board. 

“Another constant is that all ghosts have a ghost core. Ghosts are made up of ectoplasm, and the ectoplasm of the ghost is held together by a crystallized, highly energized ball of ectoplasm known as a core. For ghosts, cores serve the functions of holding the ghost together, and of being the thought center for the ghost. A ghost can be reduced to their core and still have a thought process. With enough time and energy, a ghost core can reform a body for the ghost in question. This can’t always happen quickly, but provided that the core has enough time and ectoplasm available it will. This is why there isn't a ghostly equivalent of what we humans think of as death. There are ways that a ghost can cease to exist, but we’ll cover those in the next episode.”

Daniel turned back to the board, erased it, and wrote a new heading: “Types of Ghosts.”

“Before you ask, yes, there are different types of ghosts. Hopefully, I’ve made that clear already. Ghosts vary into many different categories, only the broadest of which will be covered in this episode. The first categorization system we’ll cover is categories by the way the ghost became a ghost.

“The first category we’ll cover are the Dead. This is what most people think of when they think of a ghost. A ghost that is Dead is the ghost of a plant, animal, or person that has died. There’s a lot of nuance here, but like I’ve said, this episode is an overview. We’ll get into the nitty gritty of it later.

“The second category is the Neverborn. The Neverborn are, like the name states, ghosts that were never born. These ghosts are formed out of ectoplasm that is already partially sentient. Don’t worry if this doesn’t make much sense yet, this one is hard to wrap your head around. 

“The third and final category is the Deathless. The Deathless are ghosts that were born from two ghosts. The way this happens is complicated and, frankly, somewhat disturbing. We’re not going to talk about it. But, yeah, the Deathless are born from two ghosts.

“Another categorization system of ghosts is based on power level. These categories are more nuanced, and there are more exceptions, but for now we’ll stick with the roughly three categories that ghosts fall into here.

“The first of these are weak ghosts. These are ghosts that generally have only one Obsession, only the three basic powers, and are reliant on a constant source of ectoplasm to function. They usually take the forms of blobs or other shapes, and are generally not verbal or speak only simple ghost tongues. Yes, ghosts have their own languages, we’ll get to that later.

“The second are average ghosts. These ghosts usually have two or three Obsessions, and a varying number of powers beyond the basic three that we’ve covered. Some of the ghosts that are higher within this category have powers that are specific to their Obsessions. More on this later. Most of these ghosts take some sort of humanoid or animal form, because their cores can handle more detailed physical bodies. This is when you get into more intelligent ghosts, that have good understanding of things outside of their Obsessions. They have better understanding of most things, and will perform behaviors outside the limits or insistences of their Obsessions. 

“The last of these categories is, of course, powerful ghosts. Powerful ghosts usually have anywhere from two to ten Obsessions, it varies widely. These ghosts also have many powers beyond the basic three, and are more likely to have powers related to their Obsessions. A music obsessed ghost might have the power to influence sound waves, a love obsessed ghost might have the power to influence people’s emotions, and a time obsessed ghost might have the power to stop time. Powers like this are usually found in more powerful ghosts, because more powers require more energy from the ghost in question. The powers of average and high level ghosts vary widely, and we don’t have a detailed understanding of how they work or why some ghosts have different powers or power levels than others. 

“The last categorization system we will discuss today is the difference between adult and child ghosts. This one is easier to understand. Ghosts do not determine whether one is an adult or a child based on age. The determination is made on, simply explained, self awareness and control. 

“What this entails is slightly more complex. Ghosts, much like humans, require energy to function. Child ghosts absorb energy constantly. It’s a reflex, much like breathing is for humans. They  _ can  _ stop doing it for short times, but it’s dangerous, painful even. Adult ghosts, on the other hand, absorb and let off energy at will. It’s closer to how humans eat. They still have to do it, but not nearly as often or as much as child ghosts do. It’s their choice. Some child ghosts can ‘grow up’, so to speak. They can gain awareness and control of their energy absorption, and slowly transition from being children to being adults. I say some, because most child ghosts can’t do this. Among the Dead, in particular, it’s almost unheard of. It’s more common for the Deathless and Neverborn.”

Daniel finished his writing, took a breath, and turned back to the camera.

“This has been the Basics of Ghosts. Thanks for watching, even if you probably had no choice.”

And the video clicked off. Steve and Peter both looked up from their notebooks. They were, of course, the only ones who took notes.

“Alright, does anyone have any questions I should write down?” Steve asked.

“No,” Tony answered, shortly.

“I made my own list,” Peter offered, waving his notebook in the air.

Everyone else shook their heads, or shrugged. Steve and Peter bent their heads together, looking over each other’s notes. Everyone else slowly left the room in twos or threes, until Tony, Peter, and Steve were left alone. Tony rolled his eyes, but listened with fondness as they compared notes.

* * *

“Jazz, you’re never gonna believe this!” Danny exclaimed over the phone.

By then, Jazz was in college, far away from Amity Park. While distance wasn’t exactly a barrier for Danny, what with his ghostly forms of travel, both he and Jazz still talked on the phone fairly often in addition to those visits.

Jazz smiled and rolled her eyes. “Was it on the news?”

Danny huffed. “I mean, probably, but isn't it better to hear about it from me?”

“Of course it is,” Jazz agreed indulgently, putting her pencil down and leaning back in her desk chair to listen.

“Well, Aragon got out  _ again,  _ which isn't really the exciting part. But anyway, he tore open this portal, and when I went through it was to NEW YORK CITY! I only realized it when I saw Spider-Man talking to this police officer, and I heard him say he didn’t know what the things attacking were, so I swooped in and told him they were ghosts and I got to be all dramatic about it. And I gave them some weapons, then Scarlett came and brought more, and Spider-Man helped me take down Aragon! Then Scar gave them a speech, cause you know how she is about that, and then we left. 

“But then today Winter got a call from  _ Tony Stark,  _ and I know I met him already, but it was still so cool! So they scheduled this meeting to talk about ghosts and ghost weapons and stuff, and I wasn’t going to go, but then Clockwork told me to, so I did. I still don’t know why, but you know Clockwork. Could be any reason. But anyway, Spider-Man was at the meeting! And he’s just like...really cool, you know? And he seemed really excited to see me again, and then Scarlett had me give them the VHS tapes of the instruction videos I made for them, and now the  _ Avengers  _ are watching the goofy instructional videos that I made for my high school class. It’s crazy, Jazz!”

Jazz chuckled, imagining her younger brother waving his hands around in excitement. 

“It sounds really exciting, Danny. I’m glad you’re happy,” she answered, and she really was.

Danny was quiet for a moment. “I’m really happy, Jazz,” he assured her, in that soft, serious voice he used when he was thinking.

“I’m glad,” she repeated, equally as softly.

“You know I’ll always need you, right?” Danny asked, after a beat. “I know I have Scarlett and Winter and Alex and Sebastian now, and I love them all to death, but they could never replace you.”

Jazz softened, smiled a little. She knew she would always be there for him, but it was always good to know she was wanted.

“I know, little brother. I’ll always need you, too, you know,” she answered.

A beat of silence.

“Good,” he said, firmly.

“Good,” she echoed.

“You probably have all sorts of fancy prep school stuff you have to do, don’t you?” Danny asked after a moment, teasing.

Jazz rolled her eyes. “It’s  _ Harvard,  _ Danny, and yes. I do.”

“Well, you’d better get to it then. I’d say you could stop working when you die, but well,” Danny joked, cheeky.

Jazz huffed. “Cheesy.”

“Always. But seriously, do good, yeah? And remember-”

“To watch my back, I know, Danny. I love you.”

“Love you too, Jazz. Bye!”

“Bye!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to include them watching every instructional video. Nope. Not a thing. Mainly because there's just already so much exposition in here and that would be overkill, even for me. Also, I know I said 4 Encounters chapters total, but I've reworked it since then and now there are five?? I have so many characters to introduce man. So much set up. This is going somewhere, I swear it is. Anyway, happy Wednesday and all that. Thanks for reading!


	8. Encounters Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We check in with MJ, Ned, Sam, and Tucker. Also, Sebastian and Alex Paris come for a visit. The Fruitloop is discussed. Oh, and clones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this instead of doing what I actually needed to get done because I have problems. Also, there are five Encounters chapters, so this one and then one more. And then we get into Learning Curves. I struggle with chapter names so I kind of just...hack them up by story arc?? Idk man anyway here's this

_ Chapter Eight: Encounters Part Four _

“Seriously, Danny, you have a cell phone for a  _ reason,”  _ Sam griped.

“She’s right, dude. We  _ so  _ shouldn’t have had to hear about you meeting the Avengers and Spider-Man from the news,” Tucker added.

They had met up at the park before break ended to talk and wander around. Danny winced.

“Sorry. I was sort of still processing it, I guess. Scarlett and Clockwork were being all overprotective about it, too. Humans wielding ghost weapons and all that,” he explained, waving a hand.

Sam and Tucker shared a look.

“You okay, dude?” Tucker asked.

Danny shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, yeah, I’m okay.”

“Good. Because this is the one time I’ll give you a free pass for not telling us about superhero meetings,” Sam retorted, bumping him with her shoulder.

“ _ And  _ you have to tell us every detail,” Tucker added.

“Of course,” Danny agreed.

* * *

“Dude! You met a  _ teenage ghost superhero  _ and you’re just now telling me about it?!” Ned hissed in Peter’s ear.

Peter grabbed his arm and started tugging him through the crowded high school hallways until they made it to their first period classroom. 

“We were on Spring Break! You didn’t have a phone signal or internet! Do you know how many times I tried to call you?” Peter whispered back, shuffling his papers.

“I got back last night!” Ned protested.

“I was with the Avengers! What did you want me to do, say I had to leave to call my best friend that I was going to see today anyway?” Peter whispered back.

“I guess not,” Ned agreed. “But you have to tell me everything!”

“Ok, well-”

“What are you whispering about, losers?” MJ asked, walking in.

Ned and Peter exchanged a look. MJ sat at the desk next to Peter and dropped her bag next to her feet.

“I was telling Ned about meeting Phantom,” Peter whispered.

“YOU TOLD HER BEFORE ME?!” Ned whisper yelled.

Heads turned. 

“Shut up!” Peter hissed.

“Sorry,” Ned whispered.

“I had internet and cell service still, unlike some people,” MJ retorted, setting her sketchbook on her desk.

“Not cool, dude,” Ned complained.

Peter shrugged. “I could reach her, at least. Where did you guys go on vacation, anyway?”

“Some mountain house in North Carolina. Lots of tubing on the lake and hiking and stuff like that. It was fun, though. But I’m not letting you distract me, I want to hear  _ all about  _ Phantom,” Ned insisted.

Peter nodded. “At lunch, though. Class is about to start.”

* * *

“Danny, you’re gonna be late if you don’t leave soon!” Winter yelled, knowing he would hear her.

“Everyone’s gonna be talking about it!” Danny protested, drifting down the stairs in ghost form.

“And that’s different than every other day, how?” Winter retorted.

“It just is,” Danny protested.

“It is,” Kendra agreed, walking in.

“How?” Winter asked, tilting her head.

“Because  _ Phantom  _ did something cool that people will be talking about and admiring and telling their friends about and everyone will be treating  _ Danny  _ exactly the same. Hell, they might even try to tell him how Phantom is so much cooler than him, or try to tell him about it like he’s an idiot. And that  _ really sucks,”  _ Kendra explained.

“Oh. Yeah,” Winter agreed.

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t still have to go,” Kendra added, turning to Danny.

Danny groaned. “But it’s gonna suck,” he protested.

“It is. You’ll be alright,” Kendra answered.

“Fine,” Danny grumbled.

Kendra patted him on the shoulder. “Good. Now get outta here.”

* * *

“Wait, there was a ghost dragon with a magic amulet?” Ned asked.

“Um, yeah. Aragon,” Peter answered.

“You still haven’t watched the news story, have you?” MJ chimed in, dryly.

“There’s a news story?” Ned demanded.

“There were  _ ghosts.  _ In  _ Manhattan.  _ Of course there was a news story,” MJ retorted, before refocusing on her sketchbook.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll watch it,” Ned relented.

“Good.”

* * *

Danny was more than ready to crawl under his covers and never come out as soon as he got home. School had, as predicted, sucked. Sam and Tucker helped, because they always did, but still. His plans changed, though, when he phased through the door to find Alex and Sebastian in the living room.

“Danny, get over here and tell Alex I’m a better violinist than he is!” Winter yelled, as soon as he walked in the door.

Danny rolled his eyes, dropped his backpack, and made his way into the living room. 

“Ember thought Alex was better, remember?”

“Traitor,” Winter grumbled.

It took Danny time to get used to having brothers. He had always had Jazz, and then he ended up with Kendra and Winter. And with them came Alex and Sebastian. 

Alex was the artist of the family, which became apparent very quickly. He played violin and piano, sculpted, painted, and danced. He was the quietest of the siblings, but considering how loud they all were, that wasn’t saying much.

Sebastian was an engineer. He was the one who had made most of the ghost fighting tech they had, which he had apparently been doing long before Danny came along. He was loud and boisterous, and he got along well with Tucker. They were both tech nerds, after all. Sebastian was the kind of older brother that tried to teach Danny sports and told him stories about his “wild college days” and would probably take him to a concert or a sports game if he ever wanted to go. 

“You okay, Danny? The sisters grimm over here said you probably had a bad day,” Alex asked, nodding to Winter and Kendra.

“Hey!” Kendra protested the nickname, reaching over to thwack Alex with a newspaper.

Danny laughed. “I mean, school sucked, but I’m just glad to be home. And I’m glad to see you guys,” he answered, dropping onto the sofa next to Sebastian.

“We’re glad to see you too, Danny,” Sebastian agreed, reaching over to ruffle his hair.

“What he said,” Alex added.

“What are you guys doing here, anyway? You’re usually too busy for this,” Danny accused, looking from one sibling to the next.

“Moral support,” Alex answered, lazily.

“For what?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Alex demanded, at the same time as Sebastian yelled “KENDRA ROSE PARIS!”

Kendra winced. “I...forgot to mention it?” she tried.

“Uh-huh,” Winter teased.

“I did!” Kendra protested.

“What, exactly, did you forget to mention, Scarlett?” Danny asked, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees.

Kendra sighed. “Vlad is coming over for dinner tonight.”

Crickets.

“Why?” Danny asked, sinking back into his seat, pulling a pillow onto his lap.

Sebastian shifted closer to Danny on the couch, put an arm around his shoulders. Danny leaned sideways without really thinking about it. He hugged the pillow tighter.

“It started a few years after Kendra told him off the first time,” Winter started, when it was clear Kendra wasn’t going to answer.

“He reached out to her. Apologized for not being honest with her. Wrote her this whole letter about how family was one of his obsessions and he had a hard time balancing that with honest and normal moral standards,” Sebastian continued.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Kendra whispered. “I mean, he had never been intentionally  _ malicious  _ towards me or anything. Manipulative, sure. But he always seemed like what he did was to help me. I ended up telling him off because he was trying to control me, like he had actually raised me or something. I resented it, because I had two parents that loved me, and he was not one of them.”

“So she went to Pandora about it,” Alex picked it up. “Because, well-”

“GHOST MOM!” Winter, Alex, and Sebastian chorused.

Danny laughed. 

“Anyway,” Alex continued, “Pandora had only ever heard about Vlad from Kendra and from us, so she didn’t seem to really know how to feel about it. But the rest of us thought she should try, not least of all because,  _ hello _ , he’s rich.”

“So Kendra and Pandora agreed to meet with him,” Winter said. “But, oh my god, Pandora made the  _ biggest  _ deal out of it. She made him come to Elysium and everything, and Kendra was super embarrassed about it. But they decided he seemed sincere, so they got to know him a little better.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re, like, really close or anything,” Kendra hedged. “But he comes for dinner once or twice a year, and usually I go see him sometimes too, and we talk or whatever. And, I mean, he’s not a horrible person or anything. He’s trying his best, you know?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time he cloned me?” Danny blurted out.

“WHAT?!” Sebastian yelled. It was followed by various other expressions of shock from the rest of her siblings.

“Yeah, I, um, I kinda saved her life? She ended up as a girl somehow, by the way. Um. She was melting because she wasn’t stabilized so Tucker and I modified one of my dad’s inventions to help fix her and she’s like travelling the world now?? Um, yeah, she’s basically my kid sister. Her name is Danielle but she goes by Ellie because, like, two Phantoms named ‘Danny ’would be kind of weird. So. Yeah.”

“How did we never know this?” Winter asked.

“I never thought to tell you?” Danny offered.

“Of course not, that would be too easy,” Sebastian teased.

“Exactly!” Danny agreed, grinning.

“You don’t have to stay for dinner with Vlad, if you don’t want to,” Kendra offered.

“Dinner with the fruitloop? Think I’ll pass, thanks,” Danny answered.

Alex laughed. “Fruitloop, that’s good.”

“I like to think it’s accurate.”

Kendra sighed. “He is a little...nutty, I guess. But I think some of that is ghostly, you know? He’s trying his best.”

“Maybe another time,” Danny consoled.

“Clockwork would love to see you, I’m sure,” Winter offered.

“Hm. I was thinking more like Ellie. I’m not even sure which country she’s ended up in at this point. I bet the shadows in our lair would know, though.”

“YOU SHARE A LAIR TOO?!” Kendra yelled.

“I mean, we are technically the same person. So. Yes.”

“Should have seen that coming,” Alex muttered.

Danny shrugged, set his pillow aside, sat up. “Yup.”

“You two still gonna be here tomorrow?” he asked, gesturing to Alex and Sebastian.

“We’re here for the week, yeah,” Alex answered.

Danny nodded to himself, floating off his seat and changing forms. “Good.”

“Do you have to leave now?” Sebastian whined.

“I  _ really  _ don’t want to run into Vlad. He’ll be here in the next hour or so, am I right?”

“Yes. We can hang out the rest of the week,” Alex answered, shooting Sebastian a look.

Danny chuckled and drifted up farther. “Perfect! See you later!”

Then he was floating out of the house through the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is sort of the first time I've really put Ned and MJ in here because I've been focusing more on Peter's relationship with the Avengers. Also there will be an explanation of how Danny ended up as Daniel Paris instead of Danny Fenton, but like, not yet. There was some foreshadowing in this chapter if anyone caught it. Opinions on the Paris family? The friend interactions? Literally anything about this that you'd like to share? I do read every comment and I appreciate them so so much and one of these days I will go through and respond to everyone but until then just know that I really appreciate it and the thought of getting new comments is what makes me want to keep posting this. Kudos are also very appreciated, so thanks for all the feedback!


	9. Encounters Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Tony have a conversation about Daniel. Phantom and Clockwork visit a new place. Phantom learns some things. Some Danny and Clockwork stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is...strange. I time skipped like a month, which is stated in the chapter. Also, Danny and Peter don't talk to each other in this one. And it's kind of some weird lore stuff. It's necessary to set up some things in the future, and I'd like to think it's interesting, but it is a little weird. (As if this whole story isn't)

_ Chapter Nine: Encounters Part Five _

Tony was sitting at his lab bench, bent over studying something, when a backpack dropped onto the floor next to him. A teenage boy followed the backpack, dropping into the chair next to Tony.

“Hey Mister Stark!” Peter greeted, unwrapping a protein bar.

Tony’s head popped up, and he found himself smiling. “Hey, Petey.”

“You know, I was thinking, we should really try to watch the last one of those videos soon. It’s been, like, a month since the meeting we got them at,” Peter mused, picking up one of the VHS tapes sitting on his desk.

Tony grimaced. “I know we need to, kid, but the Avengers aren’t exactly easy to just get together for movie nights. Especially since SHIELD fell, Cap, Widow, and Falcon have been running around taking out HYDRA bases.”

Peter sighed, propped his feet up on his desk, and leaned back in his chair. “I know, believe me. You know how many HYDRA fanatics I’ve had to deal with here? Just in this city? I don’t know the number, but it was way, way too many,” he griped.

“I know, it sucks. But you’ve been doing good, if that’s any consolation,” Tony offered.

“Any progress with the ghost weapons?” Peter asked, blatantly changing the subject.

Tony decided to let him get away with it. “Absolutely none. I have no idea how to fight things that are made of a material I’ve never even  _ heard  _ of, let alone had a chance to study,” he complained, rubbing at his eyes.

“Yeah, I  _ told  _ you that would be a problem, but you were all ‘Peter, I’m a genius and a billionaire, I can figure it out!’” Peter mocked, doing a deep voice.

Tony swatted him on the shoulder half heartedly. “Yeah yeah, you were right, I was wrong, har har.”

Peter sighed. “Yeah. It sucks. I’m just glad we still have the belt things, because otherwise I would be screwed on patrol.”

“You’ve been seeing ghosts on patrol?” Tony accused.

“I mean, yeah. Not a lot of them, but like, they’re out there,” Peter answered, shrugging.

“God,” Tony groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “That  _ does  _ suck.”

“You know what I keep thinking, every time we watch one of those videos?” Peter asked, suddenly. 

“What?”

“That Daniel looks familiar. Like, really familiar. I just can’t place  _ how.” _

“He does seem familiar, doesn’t he?” Tony agreed, trying to picture the boy’s face in his mind.

“Yeah,” Peter murmured, thoughtful.

The two exchanged a dozen different ideas of who they reminded him of, but they couldn’t figure it out.

“It’s almost like he looks familiar but his voice is just different enough that I can’t place it,” Peter mused.

“Wait, that’s it, his voice is different! I think I know who it is!” Tony crowed.

“Who, who?”

“Phantom!”

* * *

“Daniel,” Clockwork called.

Danny, who was bent over a timepiece, looked up.

“What’s up?” he asked, stretching. 

Clockwork smiled at him, as mysterious as ever. “There is someone I think you should meet.”

“Okay?” Danny agreed, drifting above the table.

“I’ve told you about Wakanda?”

“Yeah, Scarlett too. Secret society in Africa, lots of tech, weird superpowered king, fancy super secret space metal, all that,” Danny agreed, listing.

“They have just had a change in power. They have a new king, who has also taken on the mantle and powers of the Black Panther, as is tradition. I believe you should meet. Now come along,” Clockwork ordered, flying down through Long Now.

“Why?” Danny called, flying after him.

“I believe, once you meet King T’Challa, it will begin to make more sense,” Clockwork advised.

Danny knew by this point that pushing would not get him a more useful answer, so he just followed Clockwork through the swirling green eddies of the Realms. Clockwork opened a portal and Danny followed him through that, too.

Danny wasn’t prepared for the breathtaking awe inspiring sheer beauty of the city they emerged in. His first thought, after wordless amazement, was that Sam would love it. There were skyscrapers and buildings surrounded by trees, dirt roads between buildings, everything sparkled and shone and nature was mixed in everywhere he looked. It was harmony, agreement, and so, so unique. Foreign, even more than the Realms were.

“Welcome to Birnin Zana, the capital city of Wakanda,” Clockwork said, softly, considerate enough not to ruin the serenity of the moment for Danny.

“It’s gorgeous,” Danny answered, softly.

Clockwork gave him another moment to stare, before he was flying off again. It took Danny a moment to snap out of his trance and follow Clockwork towards the central structure. Danny assumed it was the palace.

When they were close enough, Clockwork led him down into an open courtyard in the middle of the structure. There were two people sitting there, one man and a teenage girl that was probably around Danny’s age. Clockwork, as per usual, drifted just above the ground right in front of them. Danny copied him. The man looked up and smiled.

“Ah, Clockwork! What brings you here? Nothing bad, I hope?” the man asked, seeming worried.

Clockwork flicked his hand, dismissive. “No such thing, King T’Challa. There is just someone I wanted you to meet.”

The man, T’Challa’s, eyes shifted to Danny. “I see.”

“This is my apprentice, Phantom,” Clockwork introduced, gesturing at Danny.

Danny waved. “Um, hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

The girl beside T’Challa finally looked up from whatever she was working on.

“You’re a teenager,” she accused.

Danny tilted his head. “Technically, ghosts don’t have teenagers. But by human standards, that would be accurate.”

The girl snorted. “I’m Shuri, head of the science division for his royal kingliness over here,” she introduced, waving a hand in T’Challa’s direction.

“My sister, Shuri,” T’Challa agreed, dryly.

Danny laughed. T’Challa stood from his seat, stretching, and Danny felt something...weird from him. A tinge of pain, almost like a memory, and suddenly he was a little dizzy. Beside him, Clockwork seemed similarly affected.

“Blood blossoms,” Danny whispered.

“Yes,” Clockwork agreed. “It is a mutated version of blood blossoms that the Black Panther derives their power from.”

T’Challa glanced back and forth between them, then slowly sat back down. The feeling faded.

“I apologize,” he said, carefully.

“It’s quite alright. I was hoping Phantom would have an opportunity to learn on this trip,” Clockwork explained.

Shuri looked from her brother to the ghosts. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

“Ah. The Heart Shaped Herb that gives the Black Panther their powers is a mutated version of a plant called a blood blossom that acts as a sort of natural ghost repellent,” T’Challa explained. “I have yet to completely master that aspect of my powers,” he added, wryly.

Shuri looked back and forth again. “I see.”

“Grandfather?” Danny asked, voice small. 

The feeling had lessened, but now that he knew it was there, it was like a persistent cloying sweetness on his tongue. Barely there, just the threat of it, hovering, making his head spin unpleasantly. He had grabbed onto Clockwork at some point without realizing it.

“I am sorry, Phantom. Yes, we should quite be going now,” Clockwork announced, putting an arm around Danny. “Thank you for seeing us, King T’Challa, Princess Shuri,” he added.

They both nodded to Clockwork, who carefully led Danny back up into the sky. Once they were high enough, the feeling faded, and Danny’s nervous system returned to normal. Clockwork opened a portal and they went through it together.

“That was weird,” Danny decided, once safely ensconced again in Long Now.

“It is a strange sensation. T’Challa will gain control of that aspect of his powers eventually. In the meantime, each time you may be around him you will gain a slow sort of tolerance to the effects of the Heart Shaped Herb,” Clockwork explained.

“Why would I be around him, anyway?” Danny grouched, drifting down to sit on Clockwork’s lap.

Clockwork smiled fondly at him. “Daniel, you are very likely going to become the King of the Realms as soon as you come of age. At that point, diplomatic relations with Wakanda will pass out of the Ancient’s duties and into yours.”

“Wait, I’m going to be king?” Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

“More than likely,” Clockwork admitted.

“Oh dear.”

* * *

“It can’t be Phantom, he’s a ghost!” Peter protested.

“But just think about it! Doesn’t he look exactly like Daniel except for the eyes and the hair? And his voice being different is probably because ghosts don't sound the same as humans. They’re all echoey,” Tony insisted, waving his hands energetically. 

Peter considered it for a moment. “But how could Phantom and Daniel be the same person? One of them is a ghost and one is a human!”

Tony paused in his pacing. “Maybe they aren’t the same person? Maybe Daniel had a twin brother who died or something and that’s Phantom.”

“Maybe,” Peter allowed, doubtful.

“Or maybe,” Tony offered, “well, think about it. We’ve met Phantom in real life plenty of times, but we’ve never met Daniel. And the videos  _ are  _ on VHS tapes, and the only things that are ever in them are Daniel and that white board. We have no idea how long ago they were filmed. What if Phantom is Daniel’s ghost?”

Peter froze, the images running through his head. The voice, the face, the same hand gestures, the same turns of phrase…

“Holy shit Phantom is Daniel’s ghost.”

* * *

“I can’t be ghost king!” Danny insisted, tearing a hand through his hair.

“Daniel, please, try to calm down. It will not happen for a very long time,” Clockwork soothed.

“Why me?” Danny groaned.

Clockwork smiled sadly at him. “You are the most qualified.”

“Ugh,” Danny protested, waving a dismissive hand. “Scarlett is qualified! Why can’t she be ghost queen or something?” he demanded.

“While your sister is very powerful, she lacks the compassion and understanding that make you such a perfect candidate. There are not many ghosts with those traits in abundance,” Clockwork explained, gently.

“She’s not  _ nice  _ enough?” Danny demanded, incredulous.

“Indeed,” Clockwork confirmed.

Danny flopped face down on Clockwork’s lap. “Why is it always me?”

Clockwork stroked a hand over his hair. “Because you are exceptional.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Opinions on the weird chapter? My modifications of Wakandan things? I googled so many things....


	10. Learning Curve Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Features: Peter and Tony being Peter and Tony. Danny and Winter being a mess in general. Danny and Wanda getting into a cat-fight, sorta. More exposition, cause it never ends. Lots of talking. A theory gets blown out of the water. Some things about the last ghost king. Also, VHS tapes, really?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my doc of this story I had accidentally labelled both this chapter and the last chapter as chapter 9 and was very confused until I realized I'm just incompetent. Also, I'm kinda burning through my buffer chapters, so this is just a heads up that I might take next week off from updating to catch up. Not a sure thing, but maybe, so I figured I'd throw it out there.

_ Chapter Ten: Learning Curve Part One _

“So what do we do about it?” Peter asked, around an hour later.

“About what?” Tony asked, not looking up.

“About Phantom being Daniel’s ghost!” Peter exclaimed.

“Oh, yeah, that,” Tony agreed, mildly.

“Mister Stark! Are you even listening?” Peter grumbled.

Tony finally looked up from his work bench. “What?”

Peter sighed and face palmed. “I said, what are we going to do about Phantom being Daniel’s ghost?”

“Why would we do anything?” Tony asked.

Peter dropped his head onto his arms on the table and groaned.

“I just mean, what would we even do?” Tony tried again.

“What would we do about what?” Bruce asked, walking into the lab.

“We think Phantom is Daniel’s ghost,” Tony explained.

Bruce was quiet for a moment. “I see.”

“Does it sound crazy?” Peter asked, sitting up.

“No, I can see it. I just never considered….” Bruce trailed off.

“Yeah. Well. I feel like we have to do  _ something,”  _ Peter griped. “But  _ someone  _ doesn’t agree.”

“Real subtle there, Pete,” Tony retorted.

“I think Peter’s right,” Bruce chimed in.

“Thank you!” Peter exclaimed.

“What are we going to do, then?” Tony asked.

“We can’t just tell him. You aren’t supposed to talk to Dead ghosts about the fact that they’re dead, remember?” Peter said.

“How can we even be certain he is Daniel’s ghost? What if we said something and then we were wrong?” Bruce agreed.

“Okay, okay, how about this? Cap, Widow, and Falcon are supposed to be back sometime tonight. So tomorrow we get everyone together, we watch the last tape, and I schedule the next meeting with the Paris sisters. We can bring it up to them. Fair enough?” Tony asked.

“Alright,” Peter agreed.

“Sounds good to me,” Bruce added.

* * *

“Danny! We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up!” Winter yelled up the stairs.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Danny yelled back, running down the stairs.

What they would have been late for if Danny didn’t hurry up was the meeting with the Avengers that started in five minutes. As it was, even though they were taking the Specter Speeder through the Realms instead of just flying, they made it to the roof of Stark Tower a couple of minutes before the meeting was supposed to start.

Happy Hogan, the Stark Tower head of security, was waiting for them on the roof. He glanced at Winter and a human Danny, then led them inside and into an elevator. Same as the last time. What didn’t quite feel the same was when they stepped off, not onto a conference room, but into a….living room? And everyone was staring at Danny. Great.

Peter, in his Spider-Man suit, was bouncing anxiously as he waited for the Paris sisters to show up. Well, Tony had said it was only one of the Paris sisters this time, but still. Bouncing. They were meeting in the common room this time, because there were too many of them to sit comfortably around a conference table. This was due, of course, to the fact that every Avenger was in attendance, plus Pepper Potts. The elevator dinged and Peter looked up to see one Daniel Paris step out.

Everyone was staring. If there was one thing Danny hated, it was being stared at. Now, he was being stared at by a room full of superheroes. Which, okay, was a little cool, because they were  _ superheroes,  _ but mostly it was just uncomfortable. 

“Hello, everyone. For those of you that haven’t met me, I’m Winter Paris, and this is my younger brother Daniel,” Winter announced, breaking the silence.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Danny offered, sounding far more confident than he felt.

“It’s nice to meet you as well. Please, sit down,” Pepper Potts invited, standing, gesturing at the empty couch.

Danny and Winter exchanged a look before walking over to sit on the couch. There was another beat of silence, in which everyone was still staring at Danny.

Apparently, Peter and Tony  _ were  _ wrong. Phantom wasn’t Daniel’s ghost, because Daniel was sitting right in front of them. And everyone was staring. Which, they really shouldn’t be doing, but they were.

“Alright, I know I’m the person from the videos, but I’m really not that exciting. So, does anyone here want to tell me why you’re all staring at me?” Daniel asked, pointedly looking from one person to the next.

“We weren’t expecting you, is all,” Tony explained.

“Uh huh,” Daniel retorted, disbelieving. 

“Why are you here, anyway?” Peter found himself asking and, ouch, he did  _ not  _ mean for it to sound that aggressive.

Daniel, thankfully, didn’t seem offended. He just grinned and shrugged. “The same reason I’m the one who made the videos. I know the most about ghosts.”

“Really?” Tony asked, looking from Winter to Daniel and back again.

“Really,” Winter deadpanned.

Daniel cleared his throat. “Also, this is usually when we start talking about things like how to fight ghosts, and I’m also the best at that. Well, in the Paris family, that is.”

“I see,” Steve agreed, neutrally.

Daniel laughed. “It’s alright, I know it’s strange. But it makes sense when you stop to think about it. I’m the youngest in the Paris family. I was  _ raised  _ being taught about ghosts, fighting ghosts, researching ghosts. I first saw a ghost when I was four years old. I’ve known how to fight them effectively for almost as long. I was raised to do this kind of thing.”

Everyone exchanged glances. That sounded….a little ominous, actually.

“That makes more sense,” Steve answered.

Daniel nodded decisively. “Good. Now, are we going to get to the meeting or not?”

Everyone sort of chuckled uncomfortably. 

“Great idea!” Pepper exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Alright, then, what questions have you all come up with?” Winter asked.

“Who in the hell is the Box Ghost?” Tony griped.

Daniel laughed.

“I’m serious! You mentioned him like a million times and it’s been driving me crazy!” Tony exclaimed, smiling.

“Sorry, those videos were originally made for my high school class. Since they’re on VHS tapes I can’t exactly go back through and edit explanations in for the things that aren’t common knowledge. The Box Ghost is, well, he’s a ghost that’s obsessed with boxes. He comes to Amity every once in a while, steals some boxers, causes some chaos, then Phantom gets annoyed and sends him back to the Realms. He’s just a good example of an average ghost that everyone in Amity knows, that’s why I use him as an example so much. He’s blue, wears overalls, and yells ‘BEWARE!’ a whole lot.”

“Next question: why  _ are  _ they on VHS tapes?” Tony followed up.

“Ah. I was sort of surprised you haven't asked yet. We use a lot of ectoplasm based technology at home, and we have a lot of ghosts that pass through. There’s a lot of ambient ecto energy in our house, and it interferes with more advanced tech. Cell phones we usually modify to include ectoplasm as a power source so they work in tandem with the ambient energy, but it makes the videos on them...very weird. Sebastian, that’s our older brother that modified the cell phones, he couldn’t figure out a way to keep the ambient ecto energy from corrupting the digital storage files. So we needed something physical and we ended up with, well, VHS tapes.”

“Follow up question: what in the hell is ectoplasm?” Bruce asked.

“Ah,” Daniel began, hesitantly. “That is a very hard question for me to answer. You already know it’s the substance that makes up all ghosts, as well as the atmosphere of the Realms. The best explanation I have is….how to put this. The creation of the Realms is covered some in the first video series, but I never really got into it beyond that if I remember correctly. The Infinite Realms, as you know, are the flip side of our universe. When the big bang occured, in our material plane, it created neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons, photons and neutrinos. In the Realms, it created all of those things as well as ectoplasm. Ectoplasm isn't made up of smaller components in any way shape or form. It’s the Realms equivalent to neutrons, protons, all those other things that were created in this plane during the Big Bang. Ectoplasm then reacted with other things to create constructs, such as the atmosphere of the Realms, the islands in the Realms, and ghosts themselves. The thing with ectoplasm is that it's a force of will, so it doesn’t really follow the laws of physics or the general rules of science as we understand them. I was about to start talking about the core of the Realms, but I’m not sure if I explained that at all in the first series?”

“You didn’t,” Peter supplied.

“Okay, okay. The Realms are held together by the core, which has been called many different things. The how is...complex, to say the least. When the Realms were first created out of ectoplasm, they were created with something of an ambient will. Some say it was some sort of god or take some other religious viewpoint on it. It’s my belief that it’s just the natural inclination of ectoplasm to exist. I know that sounds strange, especially to a scientist, but the truth is that there isn't a purely scientific explanation for the way ectoplasm behaves. Ectoplasm doesn’t fit into science the way we think of it. Baseline ectoplasm, which is ectoplasm in its most basic form, is not powerful unless it is centralized. We’ve observed this in our attempts to study it. So it’s logical to assume that baseline ectoplasm is drawn to other ectoplasm in order to continue to exist. It centralizes. That is how I believe the core of the Realms came to be. Baseline ectoplasm formed in the center of the Realms, and continued to do so until it gained a sentience of its own, the same way that ghost cores do. Which is a lot of speculation, I know. What isn't speculation is that the core of the Realms is sentient and that it is the reason that the Realms stay together. It’s the same concept as the Neverborn, just on a much larger scale.”

“Wait, so by that logic, how does someone die and become a ghost?” Peter asked.

“Ah, see, that’s what’s fascinating about it!” Daniel exclaimed. “Just as ectoplasm has an inherent will of its own, it can also be manipulated by someone’s will. In this case, as a person dies, their will not to stop existing is strong enough that they draw enough ectoplasm to create a ghost core and therefore become a ghost. That’s why there are more adult ghosts among the Dead than there are child ghosts. Adults usually have more force of will than children, so they’re more likely to have enough will to draw the amount of ectoplasm necessary to create a ghost core. The way someone dies is also crucial to whether or not they’re likely to become a ghost. Someone that’s very old and has lived a full and complete life that then dies surrounded by family and friends is extremely unlikely to become a ghost. Someone in the middle of their life that dies in a tragic accident and leaves people behind and things unfinished is much more likely to become a ghost.”

“Didn’t you say when you were talking about the Ghost King that they exert their will over the Realms and the ambient ectoplasm like reflects their personality or something like that? How does that work if there’s also a core of the Realms?” Steve asked.

“Actually, it works  _ because  _ there is a core of the Realms. The core and the King or Queen have an almost psychic connection that they communicate through. The core then exerts the ruler’s will on the Realms, because the core on its own, while exceedingly powerful, is not necessarily sentient enough to understand what the Realms need the same way that a ruler is,” Daniel answered.

“Who is the ghost ruler right now, anyway?” Clint chimed in.

Daniel winced. “That’s, ah, part of the problem. There isn't one right now. That’s why this is such a bad time for Earth to become aware of the Realms. There’s not a unifying force to keep control of the Realms, conduct negotiations, things like that. The Ancients are doing their best, and the core is keeping everything together as much as it can, but there are limits to what can be done without a ruler.”

“So why isn't there a ruler, then?” Peter asked.

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. “The process of choosing a ruler is somewhat convoluted. The Ancients must either agree to the candidate or have been beaten in a battle by them in the past. The core must approve. The individual rulers within the Realms must, to an extent, approve. The candidate must be willing. Their Obsessions have to fit certain criteria. If they have any questionable past behaviors, that must be addressed in some way. If the candidate is a child ghost, their guardians must agree, which is hard to make happen. There are a lot of roadblocks. The Ancients have been working on it, but after the last Ghost King, no one is too inclined to trust easily.”

“Who was the last Ghost King?” Wanda asked.

“His name was Pariah Dark,” Daniel began. “He seemed like an ideal candidate at the time he was appointed. He was charismatic, cunning, opinionated. He had goals for the Realms that people wanted to help him work towards. The Ancients approved of him. That was a very long time ago. After he had reigned for many years, he became corrupt. He wanted more power, his goals changed, the Realms were darkened by his rule. The Ancients, desperate to restore the Realms, locked Pariah in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. Since ghosts cannot be easily forced out of power or obliterated, especially ghosts as powerful as Pariah, that was the cleanest solution. The Realms recovered, started to heal. There was a King appointed temporarily to help bring stability, but he didn’t want the job on a permanent basis, and no one dared try to force him. Things were better. Until recently, that is, when a power hungry ghost let him out of the Sarcophagus to try and steal two items of immense power that were locked inside with him. He freed Pariah. It was a battle like the Realms hadn't seen in centuries to force him back into the Sarcophagus.”

“You’re forgetting the part where he dragged Amity into the Realms and Phantom stole a prototype ghost fighting suit to lead the charge,” Winter added, grimly.

“Ah. Technically, that actually never happened. Clockwork and Desiree fixed that, remember?” Daniel argued.

“Wait, what?” Tony chimed in.

Daniel waved a hand, dismissive. “It’s complicated.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Miss Maximoff,” Daniel started, his voice icy. “I would appreciate it if you get the  _ hell  _ out of my head.”

All eyes turned to Wanda, who blushed and sunk in on herself.

“Wanda?” Steve demanded.

“It just sounded interesting. He never should’ve been able to tell I was doing anything,” Wanda muttered.

“Wanda! You can’t just look through people’s heads!” Rhodey exclaimed.

“How did you know what I was doing, anyway?” Wanda asked Daniel.

“Miss Maximoff, I’ve spent the majority of my life around ghosts in some way, shape, or form. Many ghosts have a very similar ability to go through people’s heads. I’ve learned how to recognize that feeling, as well as how to block any important memories,” Daniel answered, disgruntled.

“Fascinating,” Wanda mused.

“Wanda, apologize,” Steve ordered.

“Sorry, Daniel,” Wanda apologized, managing to actually sound sorry.

“You’re forgiven. Now, does anyone else have any questions before I get to the basics of fighting ghosts?” Daniel asked.

“Not that I can think of,” Tony answered.

Everyone else signaled their agreement. 

“Good. Okay. So, we’re not going to actually get into practice fighting this time, I’m just going to talk about it and ask you some questions about how you usually fight. When I get to that part I’ll be taking notes, but try not to let that throw you off,” Daniel said.

More agreement.

“Alright. Before we get into actually fighting ghosts, we’re going to talk about how you know whether or not you  _ should  _ fight them. There are plenty of ghosts that are content to avoid conflict if they can, so you can’t just go around attacking every ghost you see. If they’re attacking someone, you’re justified in jumping to conclusions. Otherwise, assess the situation. As you know, many ghosts have haunts in this world. It’s quite possible any ghost you see is just at their haunt and they don’t want any trouble. If you’re uncertain, try asking. Most ghosts that might be in this area of the world speak english. If there’s a reason they need to not be there, you can always just explain and ask them if they’ll leave. Like I said, most ghosts you’ll come across probably aren’t looking for a fight. If they refuse to leave and start a fight over it, then you’re justified in attacking. If they’re just being stubborn but they’re not aggressive, treat them like you’d treat a human in the same situation. Don’t jump right to violence just because they’re ghosts. Does all that make sense?”

“Yes,” Steve answered for everyone.

Daniel nodded, took a deep breath. “Good. Alright. Let’s talk about fighting ghosts, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where my "Danny knows when people are in his mind" head canon came from but I just love the idea of Wanda being her witchy little self and Danny being like "Get out of my head." Also, at some point in this Phantom and Doctor Strange are going to meet and argue about the other one "messing up time! You can't just time travel like that!" but alas I haven't figured out where to put it yet. But I need that interaction, so it'll show up eventually. So yeah. Sorry this was kinda late today, I actually *gasp* left the house, so I didn't get to it when I normally would. One more note, because my notes are eternally long winded: I've been working on a story that started out as a Bucky Barnes gets saved story bit then turned into its own like entire mini universe and is very overcomplicated, so that might end up on here sometime soon. I blame that story for the reasons the buffer chapters on this are burning....


	11. Learning Curve Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny teaches the Avengers some things about ghosts, but they get interrupted. Then, Danny teaches them some things about himself. Lies, selective truth, it's all relative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Hello people, sorry I disappeared on you. I was going to update but then I...didn't. Blame my sleep deprivation and complete inability to keep track of time. Oof. Anyway, I know it's a few days later, but here I am. No promises on whether or not I'll be back to every Wednesday starting next week, but I'm gonna try. This chapter, well, let's just say I thought the exposition needed a little bit of spice. Also, me, write fight scenes? Yeah, no.

_ Chapter Eleven: Learning Curve Part Two _

“Alright,” Daniel began. “For this meeting I’m going to be focusing mainly on fighting average ghosts, and pretty much any strategy that’s effective against average ghosts will be effective against weak ghosts as well. Powerful ghosts we’ll talk about more next time. Make sense?”

“Yup.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

“Good,” Daniel agreed, before anyone else chimed in. “Alright, the first thing we’ll talk about is ascertaining motive. Ghosts are beings of will, so it’s pretty unusual that there will be a ghost in our world without a reason. When that happens, it’s usually a case like what happened here with Aragon and that horde of weaker ghosts. Powerful ghosts like Aragon give off a lot of energy, and portals like the one he made have a pretty powerful energy signature of their own. That energy attracts weaker ghosts, especially ones that are more instinct driven, like animal ghosts and blobs. They were drawn to the portal, then to Aragaon, who had gone through the portal. Like moths to a flame. The only reason most of them could survive outside the Realms was the amount of energy and ectoplasm they pulled through with them. If there’s less ghosts than, well, a whole whole lot, then there’s some level of motive there. With most ghosts that has something to do with Obsessions. The Box Ghost, for example, is obsessed with boxes. So he comes to Earth to get boxes. Usually, the more powerful the ghost, the more complex the motive. There are also some ghosts that live on our plane, because this is where their haunts are, and ghosts defend their haunts. We’ll talk about that later. Anyway, why they’re here is important when you’re fighting them, because then you can more easily anticipate their behavior.

“Usually, it will tie in with Obsessions. Some ghosts make it really easy for you. The Box Ghosts screams ‘Beware! I am the Box Ghost, master of all things cardboard and square!’ That’s a pretty clear motive. Technus yells ‘I am Technus, master of all things technological!’ So there are those ghosts. Honestly, most ghosts are those ghosts. If they don’t just yell it out, you can usually get them to explain by taunting them like you do with villains. It’s when you can’t figure it out that you should worry.”

Daniel paused, looked around the room. He pursed his lips, then his eyes widened.

“Winter. You didn’t bring any ectoplasm, did you?” he asked, seeming worried.

Winter’s eyebrows drew together. “No. Why?” 

“Miss Maximoff, you’re not doing your weird mind thing, are you?” Daniel asked, seeming increasingly more worried.

“No,” Wanda answered, shortly.

“Winter, you need to get them out of here. Now,” Daniel ordered.

“Why? What’s going on?” Tony asked.

“Mister Stark, get down!” Peter yelled, reaching over to shove him down and ducking down himself.

A ghost flew over their heads.

“Winter, get them out of here, now! I don’t care where, just go! I’ll call when it’s clear!” Daniel yelled, pulling a weapon out of nowhere and shooting something.

“We can help!” Steve protested, as Winter started physically shoving them towards the elevator.

“No you can’t! You’re not ready yet! Get out of here!” Daniel yelled back, ducking down and shooting again.

The Avengers continued protesting, but Winter got them in the elevator with the help of Natasha and they were gone. Danny’s first instinct was to transform, but he knew there were more video and audio recording devices in here than he could count, so he refrained. He’d have to fight them off the old fashioned way.

“Teaching superheroes about ghost fighting? That’s against the rules!” a voice exclaimed, and the goons laughed.

Danny cursed. “Walker,” he snarled.

Doing this without blowing his secret was going to be harder than he thought. Wait a minute. No it wasn’t. He could stop time. Surely this counted as a dire circumstance, right? But if he got rid of them too quickly, that would also be suspicious. Wait a minute, he was being an idiot. Stop time, blow all the devices and blame it on Walker, transform, kick ass. Much better idea.

“When have I ever followed your rules?” Danny yelled back.

Walker’s mouth was open to say something else when everything except Danny froze. Time stop. Danny changed, floated up in front of a frozen Walker, put his hand to his ear.

“Huh? What? I can’t hear you. Oh, you don’t have time powers? Shame for you,” he taunted, laughing to himself.

The easiest way to stop the recording devices would be to just blow all the tech on the floor. Sadly, Danny couldn’t find the power source. Instead of going through every device and risking missing something, Danny let his least favorite thing help him out. Lighting flared across his fingertips, bright and crackling, as powerful as it was deadly. He grimaced, let it loose, dancing across the walls and the ceiling, drawn to the static hum of the technology. When there was no hum of electricity left, he let the lightning die down, and the fight truly began.

* * *

Daniel paused, looked around the room. He pursed his lips, then his eyes widened.

“Winter. You didn’t bring any ectoplasm, did you?” he asked, seeming worried.

Winter’s eyebrows drew together. “No. Why?” 

“Miss Maximoff, you’re not doing your weird mind thing, are you?” Daniel asked, seeming increasingly more worried.

“No,” Wanda answered, shortly.

“Winter, you need to get them out of here. Now,” Daniel ordered.

“Why? What’s going on?” Tony asked.

Something was wrong. Something was very,  _ very  _ wrong, Peter could feel it. His spider sense shook through his body, a warning. Behind him. Tony was sitting next to him on the couch.

“Mister Stark, get down!” Peter rushed out, shoving Tony down so he was folded in half.

Peter ducked down, too. The dangerous thing passed over them with a chill.

“Winter, get them out of here, now! I don’t care where, just go! I’ll call when it’s clear!” Daniel yelled, pulling a weapon out of nowhere and shooting something.

Peter pulled Tony back upwards, looking around. He couldn’t  _ see  _ anything dangerous, but he could  _ feel  _ it, buzzing against his skull, making his skin tingle, a shiver passing over him. Ghosts presumably, from Daniel’s reaction. Peter was smart enough to know that this was a fight he would be more a hindrance than a help in. That was true for everyone in this room except for Daniel and Winter. 

Winter was moving now, pulling people out of their seats, shoving them towards the elevator. Natasha and Bruce were helping her. Peter grabbed Tony by the elbow and pulled him up and towards the elevator. Tony didn’t protest, his eyes still scanning the room, trying to assess the threat.

“We can help!” Steve protested, struggling against Natasha, who was pushing him towards the elevator bodily.

“No you can’t! You’re not ready yet! Get out of here!” Daniel yelled back, ducking down and shooting again.

Peter pushed Tony into the elevator along with everyone except Natasha and Winter, who were trying to get Steve to come with them. Peter turned around, jogged back to them, grabbed Steve’s arm, and  _ pulled.  _ Steve wasn’t the only one with super strength, after all.

“Come  _ on,  _ Cap,” Peter insisted, pulling harder.

Steve stumbled towards him, and Peter took the opportunity to pull him harder, making him fall towards Peter. Peter ducked under his arm and pushed him into the elevator. He stumbled and almost fell, caught only by a startled Bruce offering a hand. Peter blocked him in before he could duck out. Winter and Natasha were right behind him. The elevator doors slid closed. 

“Roof,” Natasha barked, and the elevator started moving.

“We can’t just leave him there! We have to help!” Steve yelled.

“Believe me when I say that he doesn’t need our help, Captain. You would only have been in the way,” Winter snapped back.

“He’s just a teenager!” Steve protested.

“He’s been fighting ghosts since he was old enough to walk. He’s known how to use a blaster longer than that. He can handle himself. We would have been in the way, and he would have been so worried about protecting us that he would have gotten himself hurt. He. Will. Be. Fine. Alone,” Winter emphasized, seeming calmer.

The elevator doors opened onto the roof, cutting off any further conflict. Everyone poured out and caught sight of the...submarine? On the roof. Why was there a silver submarine on their roof?

“What?” Tony asked, staring at it.

Winter chuckled. “That’s how Danny and I got here. The Specter Speeder. Blame Danny for naming it that. It’s a vehicle that can travel through the Realms.”

“Wait, seriously?” Bruce asked, walking around it slowly.

“Yeah. It took us about a million years to figure out the portal opening mechanism, and it’s still not as efficient as the way Phantom and Scarlett travel, but it gets us where we need to go,” Winter explained.

“Portal opening mechanism?” Peter asked.

“Um, honestly, I’m not the best person to ask. Danny and Sebastian were the ones that figured that out. I’m more the one that runs the business side of things. I mean, I also do the fun science, but I’m not an engineer.”

“Fun science?” Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.

Winter shrugged, abashed. “That’s what we call it. I study ghost biology, ectoplasm, the atmosphere in the Realms, things like that. The messy stuff.”

“Wow, really?” Bruce asked, sounding impressed.

Winter nodded.

“I would love to get in on that sometime.”

“That can be arranged,” Winter agreed, smiling.

The doors to the elevator slid open and Danny limped out.

“Winter! Got ‘em!” he yelled, clutching his side.

Winter turned to face him, caught sight of his limp and the way he was holding his side, and jogged over to meet him. Peter watched, wondering what had happened. Winter pulled Danny’s arm around her shoulders and supported him as he limped towards the Specter Speeder.

“What happened?” Steve asked, walking over to meet the pair. Peter trailed after him.

“Freaking Walker and his goons. I got ‘em, but not before they got a few good hits in,” Danny grumbled, sitting on the open edge of the Specter Speeder, which was...floating a few inches off the ground? How had Peter not noticed that before?

“Walker? What did he want?” Winter called, rummaging around in the Speeder for something.

“Teaching superheroes about ghost fighting is apparently against the rules now, too!” Danny called back.

Winter emerged with a first aid kit. She frowned as she set it in front of Danny and sat on the ground next to it. The Avengers had gathered around them now, listening in, watching. Peter was the closest.

“Seriously? How did he even know about that?” Winter grumbled, pulling things out of the first aid kit.

“He cheats,” Danny grumbled.

“I’m sorry, who?” Clint asked.

“Ah,” Danny began. “Walker. He’s an average ghost, bordering on powerful, obsessed with rules. Freaking rules. Has his own prison in the Realms, he’s a sort of twisted version of a warden. There were some incidents. He, uh, doesn’t like me.”

“Drink,” Winter ordered, shoving a vial of something green and glowing at Danny.

Danny wrinkled his nose up, but accepted it and downed it like a shot. Winter patted him on the shoulder. Then, she started pulling his shoes and socks off to examine his ankle.

“What was that green stuff?” Peter asked.

Danny grimaced again. “Ectoplasm. I’m what we call liminal. I grew up around enough ectoplasm and ghosts that it sort of infused into my DNA. Gives me an edge when I’m fighting, and a hell of a healing factor. When I’m injured introducing more ectoplasm kicks my healing factor into high gear. Infusing it into my blood is more effective, but drinking it works well enough in a pinch. Even if it tastes terrible.”

Everyone stared. Except for Winter, of course, who was carefully wrapping Danny’s ankle.

“You sprained this.  _ Again,”  _ she griped.

Danny shrugged. “What can I say? Fighting inside isn't my strong suit. Too many obstacles. The bruised ribs you can blame on Walker, though.”

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that entire thing about the ectoplasm again?” Clint asked.

Danny chuckled, but it turned into a cough. He wiped blood off the back of his mouth. 

“I’m what we call liminal. I grew up in a thin spot, where distinguishing our world from the Realms is hard. Ectoplasm, energy, things like that permeated throughout the house I grew up in. There were pocket dimensions, places that if you went into them just right you would end up in the Realms instead of on Earth. This was from the time I was a newborn. Turns out, the effect of that is that I grew up with ectoplasm being infused into my system. In the food, the water, the air. Everything. I’m a little bit ghost, I guess you could say. My body can metabolize ectoplasm and put it to use where it’s needed. Think of it like supercharging. I can move a little faster, heal faster, drink straight shots of ectoplasm and have it be beneficial. For reference if, say, Winter here did the straight shot of ectoplasm like I just did, it would most likely kill her. But I’m liminal. Long term exposure shifted my biology just enough to incorporate ectoplasm.”

“Wait, if that happened to you, why didn’t it happen to the rest of your family?” Tony asked, suspicious.

“Because-” Winter started. Danny cut her off with a raised hand.

“It’s alright, Winter,” he said. Then, he turned his attention back to everyone else. “I’m Daniel Paris now, but I grew up as Danny Fenton. My parents were ghost hunters, but that was all they were. They didn’t understand any of the nuance of it, they thought every ghost was evil and that was that. That’s how I was raised. They’re the ones that taught me to use a blaster, that locked me in rooms with just a balster and a ghost when I was barely old enough to walk in a straight line. It wasn’t a good way to grow up. My older sister Jazz was the only reason I got through it. My parents opened a portal into the Realms to be able to capture and study more ghosts. That increased the ectoplasm concentration in our house to sky high. If we hadn’t already grown up in such a thin spot, it probably would have killed all of us. But it didn’t. Jazz is the same amount of liminal as I am, maybe a little more, because she’s two years older. When my parents found out we were liminal, they said we were ghosts and, well, tried to kill us. So we left. Kendra and Winter came across us, they were new to town. They listened, took us in, went through the legal system to get us away from our parents. We’ve been Daniel and Jasmine Paris ever since then. Jazz is in college now, at Harvard. And I’m here.”

“Satisfied now?” Winter grumbled.

Everyone had been struck speechless, Peter included. Peter especially, more like. How could someone do that to their own kids? How could people think that way at all?

“I, um, I’m sorry,” Tony said, awkwardly.

“I’m gonna kill them,” Clint snarled.

Danny laughed, scrubbed at his eyes. “Thanks, but they’ve been...taken care of.”

“That’s ominous. I like it,” Natasha decided.

“What happened?” Steve asked.

“Scarlett happened,” Danny answered, voice soft.

“She’s got a thing about justice. Or revenge. The line is kind of nonexistent with her,” Winter chimed in.

“What’s her deal, anyway? I mean, like, how do you guys know her and Phantom?” Rhodey asked, trying to break the tension.

Danny and Winter exchanged a glance. Winter had finished wrapping Danny’s ankle and ribs now, and was sitting next to him on the edge of the Speeder, periodically shoving a vial of ectoplasm at him.

“Our town, Amity Park, is Phantom’s Haunt. Scarlett is Phantom’s kid brother. We study ghosts. Do the math,” Winter answered.

“Ah,” Tony said, in a tone that said he did not do the math.

“They came to take us out, originally,” Danny supplied. “Thought we were like the Fentons. I’m just lucky Kendra and Winter talked them down.”

“Enemies to frenemies to friends?” Peter suggested.

“Yeah, that,” Danny agreed, seeming satisfied.

“I should probably get him home. He’ll insist he’s fine and he can finish the lesson, but Kendra would probably actually skin me alive if I let him,” Winter decided.

“You worry too much,” Danny complained, rolling his eyes.

Winter shrugged. “I’m your sister, that’s my job.”

“At least reschedule? I didn’t even get to the fun part,” Danny griped.

Winter turned to the Avengers, raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah, we can do that. I’ll figure out everyone’s schedules and call you?” Tony offered.

“Perfect,” Winter agreed. “I’ll talk to you then.”

“Bye, everyone!” Danny called, waving as he shuffled further into the vehicle.

Winter waved as well, walking into the front of the vehicle. Everyone still on the roof waved and yelled their goodbyes until the doors closed. A portal opened in front of the vehicle, and it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's that. Um. Maybe next chapter I'll have Natasha stab someone for absolutely no reason, we'll see. Also, Bruce and Winter might be a thing?? Idk they're not the main focus of the story or anything but I can definitely see them starting out as like science bros and then getting together. I have lots of problems with Natasha and Bruce together, so yeah, we're not gonna do that. Um, anyway, bye. *vague hand waving* I'll see you again eventually.


	12. (Interlude) They Made Us Who We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some sad sappy emotional stuff. Hurt/comfort. Lots of fluff. Not really plot progression but there's character development.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sleep deprived stumble into chat* Hello, friends! I have survived another week! I'm currently out of town but I made it! Barely! But technically it's still Wednesday!! So hi! This is sort of an interlude type chapter before I get into some more ~plot~ stuff but I just like needed Tony Stark to be a father and Danny to have had a messed up childhood so that's like all this is. I stole the title of the chapter form the same song I stole the title of the story from, which is Written in the Scars by The Script. It's a good song for this story, and in general, so if you've never heard it I highly recommend googling. With that said, adieu. Peace out. Bon voyage. I'll see you next Wednesday. Ciao.

_ Chapter Twelve: (Interlude) They Made Us Who We Are _

“You could’ve called me,” Kendra grouched, for what felt like the millionth time.

“I had it handled!” Danny insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

He was currently sitting on the couch at home, in ghost form, his twisted ankle propped up on a foot rest. And Kendra would  _ not  _ leave him alone about the ghost attack at Avengers tower.

“Well you got hurt so clearly you didn’t,” she huffed.

Danny sighed, patted the couch next to him. Kendra glared for a moment before she sat down next to him. He leaned his head on her shoulder.

“I get that you’re concerned,” he started, softly.

Kendra just scoffed, and Danny took that as permission to continue.

“And I appreciate that, I do. I get that. You think I never worry about you? Because I do. But I’m used to handling things myself. I’ve always had to. And I know you don’t like to hear it, but that’s how I grew up. It was Jazz and I against the world, against our parents, against everyone. Calling for help just wasn’t something we did. It meant we weren’t strong enough, or capable enough, to handle it on our own. So I became all of those things. Strong enough, capable enough, confident enough. I know you want to see me as a little kid, but I grew up a long time ago. So I’m sorry I upset you, and I’m sorry I got hurt. And you’re allowed to be concerned, but you’re not allowed to say I’m not capable enough to have handled it on my own. Okay?”

Kendra sighed heavily and settled a warm arm around Danny’s shoulders. She was quiet for a moment, and Danny let her gather her thoughts.

“I know you’re capable,” she nearly whispered. “And I know you can handle it. And I know you like to think you’re all grown up, but I’m still your older sister and so you’re still my responsibility. I know your home life sucked. And I know I’ve never talked to you about that as much as I should have. I know you talk more to Alex about that kind of thing, and as long as you’re happy with that, that’s fine with me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to confide in me if you don’t want to. It’s just...none of that is going to stop me from worrying about you and wishing I could always be there to keep you safe and make your life easier. You’ve dealt with a lot of stuff you never should have had to deal with, and I hate that I wasn’t there to protect you from it. I just want you to be safe. I know I can be pushy about it, and I’m sorry, and I’ll try to be better. I just love you, Danny, and I worry.”

Danny hummed thoughtfully. They had talked about this before, how Kendra could be overprotective, but he wasn’t sure they had ever actually had a conversation this productive about it. As a general rule of thumb, Danny was really only this open with Jazz and Alex. Jazz, because, well, she was Jazz. And Alex, well. He was just a good listener and he always seemed to know how to help. Kendra usually wasn’t one for actually being open about her emotions, but she could be when she tried.

“I know,” Danny said, simply. “I know. We’ll get there.”

* * *

“You okay, kid?” Tony asked, looking up from his lab bench.

Peter had thumped into the lab today, lacking any of his usual enthusiasm, dropped his backpack in his seat, and started tinkering on the holo-table without so much as a “hello.” Tony had no doubt something was wrong, but he didn’t want to make Peter talk about it if he didn’t want to.

“Yes,” Peter lied. Tony waited. A moment later, Peter thumped his head back against his chair. “No,” he groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“You want to talk about it?” Tony offered, tentatively. He wasn’t the best with emotions, but he wanted to help the kid, if he could.

“Have I ever told you about when I became Spider-Man?” Peter asked.

“Not really,” Tony answered, wondering where the hell Peter was going with this.

“Six months ago,” Peter began. “My class took a field trip to Oscorp. Ew, Oscorp, I know. Anyway. We were in the animal test labs, because they have those there. Which they totally shouldn’t, if you ask me. So we were touring these labs, and this alarm started going off. And all the kids in my class are freaking out of course, because we’re in a lab and why is an alarm going off? And these scientists are all running around, and someone yells that the mutated radioactive spiders got out, and isn't that just  _ great.  _ So now everyone is scared because duh, spiders, so everyone in my class starts running towards the exit. But y’know, before I got these powers, I was just me. No enhancements, not even as strong as a normal teenager my age really. And in all this chaos I got kind of knocked over, so I rolled to the side so I wouldn’t get trampled. Then the back of my hand started burning, and I thought I must have scraped it in the fall or something, so I looked. And there was this big black hairy spider just staring at me, and the back of my hand was all bloody, and I realized it had bitten me. Which, yeah, not good. So I kind of screamed and shook it off, but everyone was screaming by that point, so it wasn’t all that noticeable.”

Peter paused, rubbing the back of his left hand without seeming to notice he was doing it. Tony waited, already seething at what was clearly a lack of proper lab procedures, for Peter to continue.

“So anyway, I guess at that point Ned and MJ had realized I wasn’t with everyone else, and so they both came back for me even though they weren’t supposed to. When they saw the back of my hand they asked what happened and I just lied and told them I scraped it when I got knocked down. I was worried if I told anyone I’d become a science experiment or something. So I kind of brushed everyone off and just wrapped it when I got home. I was living with May and my uncle Ben at that point. Have I ever told you about Ben?” he asked, looking at Tony with those big imploring brown eyes.

“No,” Tony answered, and it was true. Peter hadn’t told him about Ben, but Tony had done as much research on Peter’s life as he could before he went to meet him.

“He was my uncle,” Peter said, and his voice was soft, wistful. “My parents died when I was just a kid, I think I was about six or so. I don’t really remember them. May and Ben took me in after they died. They raised me. I know you’re not supposed to say this about people, but they really did replace my parents, because I was so young when it happened. I think I mourned them at the time, but I can’t even remember who they were. I don’t know anything about them. Ben, he was like a father to me. He’d always play games with me, and we’d talk, and he’d bring me home little tech things to work on because I loved stuff like that even as a kid. And he’d watch Star Wars and build lego sets with me. Whenever I had a problem I would go to him about it. We’d get bottles of Root Beer and go out on the back porch and talk about it until we figured something out. He was just...I loved him. A lot. And I relied on him for a lot. He was always so much larger than life to me, especially when I was younger. He always knew how to make everything better. May was always there for me, always loved me and helped me and took care of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love May to death. But Ben and I just had a different kind of relationship.”

“It sounds like you were lucky to have him. I’m glad he was there for you,” Tony said, softly.

Peter nodded, seeming sad. Then, he turned to Tony, and he grinned. “He hated you,” Peter reported, brightly.

That startled a laugh out of Tony. “What?” he asked.

Peter grinned at him, though he still seemed a little sad. “Yeah. I always admired you, even before you became Iron Man. You were the kind of smart and successful I always hoped I’d be one day. But Ben, oh, he  _ hated  _ that you sold weapons. He always said ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and he didn’t like that you used your power to kill people and sleep around. And after you became Iron Man I got some solid hero worship in there too, and Ben was not a fan of that. But he loved me enough to take me to the Stark Expo you did, the ones the hammer drones attacked. I was wearing an Iron Man mask and everything. Ben and I got separated at one point when the drones were attacking, and this drone tried to target me because of the mask, and I acted like I had a repulsor to shoot it with. God, I was terrified,” Peter paused to chuckle awkwardly before continuing. “But then you swooped down in the Iron Man armor, and you blasted it away with your repulsor, and you looked down at me and said ‘nice job, kid.’ I can’t even  _ tell  _ you how insufferable I was after that. Ben still hated you, though.”

“Wait, I remember that. That was  _ you?”  _ Tony demanded. He remembered the kid in the Iron Man mask, raising his arm with a non-existent repulsor, staring down the drone.

“Yup,” Peter answered.

They were silent for a moment, and Peter seemed to slip away back into his brooding silence.

“You were saying, about when you got your powers?” Tony prompted.

Peter flinched and looked up, wide eyed. “Yeah, yeah. Anyways, so I came home with this spider bite and May wrapped it for me, since she’s a nurse y’know. And I kinda figured it would be fine. Then the next day I woke up and I felt awful, like seriously awful. I ached all over, my head was pounding, all the lights seemed way too bright, and somehow I was starving and nauseous at the same time. Ben and May figured I’d probably just gotten sick on the field trip, so May stayed home with me and made me soup and gave me pain meds and cold meds and took my temperature and all that. But then after a week I was the same, and I barely managed to convince them I didn’t need to go to the hospital. I knew it had to have been the spider bite. By that point it was getting harder to hide it, because I started  _ sticking  _ to stuff. Like how I climb walls now, except I had absolutely no control over it. Thankfully May went back to work and Ben didn’t notice, but let me tell you, it was the weirdest thing. Then after about another week, I just woke up one day, and I was fine. Completely back to normal. Then I did a backflip to get out of the way of a moving car that I hadn’t seen coming, and that’s how I discovered the strength, agility, and spider sense. So I sort of fumbled around with it for a week or so and realized I was strong. Like, really strong. I could just...lift a car with one hand. Or stop a train. It was insane. That was the week I made my first suit. I started trying to kind of study what all I could do. I was excited about it. I was on the side of this building one day, then, and down on the street this police officer was chasing this guy with a gun. And the police guy sees me up there, you know, and is all like ‘Stop him! Help me!’” Peter paused, then, stared at his lap.

“I didn’t help him,” he whispered, twisting a loose thread on his jeans around his fingers. “I was having fun, and I thought I was too good to stop and help him,” he continued, still whispering.

Peter glanced up at Tony through his eyelashes, and Tony could see the kid had tears in his eyes. Peter looked back down, swallowed heavily. “I came home later that night, and there were police cars and an ambulance there. And May was there, sitting on the edge of an ambulance, and she was sobbing. So I rushed over and asked what happened and-” Peter cut himself off, breathing hard. Tony reached out and took one of the kid’s hands from his lap, giving it a squeeze. Peter held onto him. It took a moment, but Peter collected himself enough to continue his whispered tale.

“And May said, she said, ‘He took Ben.’ And I had never been so scared in my life. A burglar had broken into our house, and he had panicked when he heard the police sirens, because the neighbor had called them. And he took Ben, because he wanted something out of the house. And that was when I heard him in a warehouse nearby, Ben and someone else. I was furious. I was terrified, but I was also furious. So I put my suit back on, and I went over there, fully intending to save Ben and arrest the burglar. But before I got there I heard a gunshot. So I started running. And I found Ben….I found Ben on the ground, bleeding out.”

Peter fell silent, then, and Tony could see the tears running down his face. Tony stood, then, and pulled Peter up and into his arms. Peter was stiff at first, but then he relaxed into the embrace and buried his head against Tony’s shoulder. Tony felt tears soaking into his shirt, and he just held onto Peter and rubbed soothing circles on his back.

“I h-held him while he d-died,” Peter sobbed, hiccupping.

Tony held on tighter. He hadn’t known that. Peter had held his uncle while he died? That was...he didn’t even know what to do other than hold onto the kid and make soothing nonsensical noises that he hoped would somehow be comforting. He wasn’t sure how much time passed.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he whispered.

Peter sniffled, seeming calmer, but still didn’t let go. “He’s why I became a hero,” he whispered. “I chased the man down, that killed Ben, after. He was the same thief the police officer had asked me to help him catch, earlier. I turned him in. I was covered in blood, y’know? I told May I found Ben already dead and that someone else had knocked the killer out. I didn’t know how to tell her it was my fault.” He sniffled again. “With great power comes great responsibility. I should have listened, when Ben said that.”

“It was  _ not  _ your fault,” Tony said, vehemently, practically growling into Peter’s ear. “It was the man who killed Ben’s fault. It was  _ not  _ your fault, Peter. That’s not your responsibility, it’s not on you.”

“But it  _ is,”  _ Peter mumbled. “I should have helped stop him when I had the chance. But instead I was screwing around. So yeah, it’s my fault. And I’ve lived with that every day since then.” He sounded so bitter, so broken, and Tony held onto him tighter. 

The words he’d said to Tony the day they met made so much more sense now.

_ “Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…...they happen because of you.” _ God, the kid was nursing a guilt trip bigger than the city. How had it taken Tony so long to see it? He sighed, ruffled Peter’s hair, hugged him tighter. Then, he pulled back, grabbing Peter’s shoulders and forcing the boy to look him in the eyes.

“Peter, listen to me. Ben’s death was not. Your. Fault. It’s not on you. You’re not responsible for the safety of every single person on the planet. That’s too much for you to take on by yourself, it’s unrealistic, and it’s only going to end in you getting hurt. It’s not your fault. I know you don’t believe that right now, and you might not for a long time, but it’s still true. It’s not your fault. It wasn’t your responsibility in the first place. It’s in the past, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. I know it might not seem like it, but everything will be alright,” Tony said, sternly, holding eye contact the whole time.

Peter was a little shaky, and there were silent tears running down his cheeks, but he nodded. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”

Tony pulled him in for another bone-crushing hug. Peter clung on to him, and it made Tony realize how young he still was, even if he wasn’t a little kid anymore.

“How about we order some pizza and ice cream and watch one of those space movies you like?” Tony asked, after a while.

“You can’t just  _ order  _ ice cream, Mister Stark. And it’s Star Wars. The space movies are Star Wars,” Peter retorted, smiling a little timidly.

Tony ruffled his hair. “You can if you’re a billionaire, kid. And whatever you say.”

Peter huffed, scrubbed at his tears. “It’s Ben’s birthday today,” he said, quietly.

Tony hugged him again. They pulled apart and Tony had FRIDAY order them a ridiculous amount of pizza and ice cream and soda. Peter was quiet and melancholy, and Tony let him sort through his thoughts on his own. They got their delivery and absconded to the comfortable futon in the corner of the lab. Usually Peter kept a socially respectful distance between them, but today he cuddled right up next to Tony, leaning against him. Tony just wrapped his free arm around the kid’s shoulders and tucked him a little closer.

That’s how Pepper Potts found the two when she came down a few hours later after a call from Peter’s Aunt May. There were empty pizza boxes and ice cream containers strewn about. There, in the middle of the futon, Peter was passed out practicality on top of an equally asleep Tony. Pepper smiled and got out her phone to call May back. Peter was spending the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...actually don't have anything to say here?? Um, there's that. This chapter was even less grammar checked than usual, so let me know if something needs a fixing. Bye bye now.


	13. (Interlude) Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's another interlude. It's short, but stuff happens. Sort of. Just read it, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I was going to post this tomorrow and make you wait a whole week for an actual chapter, but I decided I'm not that mean. So this is very short and sweet, but I do have an actual chapter for you tomorrow so don't hate me too much. Also, I really didn't want to do 2 interludes in a row but like...they both just kinda fit here?? Idk don't judge me. Also! I updated the tags and the description! So there's that! (I stole the chapter title from Hamilton, yes. It works, okay?!)

_ Chapter Thirteen: (Interlude) Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story _

Elsewhere…

On a dark and stormy night, a famous neurosurgeon crashes his car off a cliff and begins a journey that will change everything.

Around a glowing table in Long Now, a group of Ancient and powerful ghosts gather. The owner of the lair has some things to say, and no one wants to hear them. They need to vote, but the image on one of the mirrors of a vibrant white-haired ghost boy wearing an old and powerful relic and laughing with the Princess of Wakanda makes them hesitate. The screens flicker around his life, laughing with that same Princess of Wakanda, holding hands with a boy in a superhero suit and a mask, leaning against his orange haired older sister on the bottom bunk of a twin bed in a crowded dorm room, in a living room surrounded by siblings and friends and laughing, and lastly, images of him alone, falling through a portal, fighting in a war that shouldn’t have been his, sitting on a throne of ice while snow falls around him, utterly alone. The last images are painful, hard to accept, but they won’t change. That doesn’t mean they can’t put the vote off just a little longer.

In the swirling green of the Infinite Realms, a ghost with dark hair and blue eyes who isn't sure how long he’s been dead makes a new friend named Ellie. She says he’s faster than any ghost she’s ever met, except for maybe her brother. But her brother flies, and he runs. Ellie thinks he’s weird but fun, apparently, and she sticks around. She asks him his name. He tells her he thinks it might have been Pietro.

In a lab in Amity Park, Winter and Bruce lean over a microscope side by side while Winter enthusiastically explains the different properties of ectoplasm. Bruce smiles as her eyes twinkle, and she passes him a cup of tea. It’s late, and he should probably have left a long time ago. Winter probably should have stopped brewing tea and talking and laughing, because she knows things that Bruce isn't supposed to. But she didn’t, and she doesn’t want to. For once, she wants to do something for some reason other than that she’s supposed to.

Kendra Paris wraps her coat tighter, standing outside a small apartment in Bucharest in the dead of night, and thinks about how much Clockwork is going to owe her for agreeing to this. She knocks again, impatient, and the door flies open. The man is holding a gun, but he’s subtle about it. If Clockwork hadn’t warned her, she might never have noticed. As it is, she keeps it in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t honestly think he’ll use it on her.

“My name is Kendra. A friend of mine asked me to come talk to you. He said you met my brother Danny, during the war?” she offered, with a small smile.

The man watched her, his face slipping into a little half-smile. “Yeah, Danny was a good kid. Deserved more than we could give him. I always hated watching him shiver in the snow. He  _ hated _ the snow. Could never wait for the sun to rise, either. Said the dark freaked him out.”

Kendra didn’t need Clockwork’s advice to know this was a test. “Are you sure we’re thinking of the same kid?” she asked, lightly. “Danny  _ loves  _ the snow. And he can’t get enough of watching the stars, even though it messes up his sleep. He wants to be an astronaut, someday.”

The man relaxed, marginally. The hastily pulled on glove slipped down his left arm, and Kendra caught a glance of metal as he opened the door wider.

“Come in, then,” he invited, voice gruff.

Kendra smiled and slipped in past him. “Thank you. I have a lot to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. There's that. I tried not to make it hard to figure out who people are even if I didn't give their names. I almost didn't tell you Pietro's name but then I was like nope gotta be dramatic. This is all going somewhere, I swear!! It is!! I'm just in it for the long haul. Also I know the whole part with Kendra is weird and raises a lot of questions. There will be answers eventually, but probably not anytime soon. So if you want to sort of spoil it for yourself in the interest of knowing what's happening/has happened, I put it in rot13 and dropped it here. Just plug it into rot13.com and read it, but beware, SPOILERS! Read at your own risk! (Also I've never put like a rot13 thing in anything before this is weird XD)
> 
> Fb onfvpnyyl vs lbh jrer jbaqrevat lrf gung jnf Ohpxl naq lrf Qnaal sbhtug jvgu gur Ubjyvat Pbzznaqbf sbe n ubg zvahgr, ohg vg'f gvzr geniry, fb sebz Qnaal'f crefcrpgvir vg unfa'g unccrarq lrg. Fgrir qbrfa'g erpbtavmr uvz orpnhfr ur guvaxf Qnaal qvrq va gur jne. Ohpxl xarj n ybg bs Qnaal'f frpergf, yvxr gung ur jnf unys tubfg naq ur'q gvzr geniryyrq, fb gung'f jul Xraqen gnyxf nobhg Qnaal va cerfrag grafr. Gurer'f tbaan or yvxr na ragver puncgre be zber ba guvf ng fbzr cbvag ohg znlor abg sbe n juvyr fb V svtherq V'q yrnir guvf urer sbe crbcyr gung jnagrq gb xvaq bs whzc nurnq. Vs lbh unir dhrfgvbaf/pbzzragf/pbafcvenpl gurbevrf ba guvf srry serr gb zrffntr zr (V jbhyq fnl yrnir vg va gur pbzzragf ohg yvxr fcbvyref!! Lvxrf!!)
> 
> Questions/comments/confusions/concerns? Drop them in the comments!


	14. A Princess and a Future Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny travels to Wakanda to help Princess Shuri learn more about ectoplasm. Peter has an unexpected visitor with unexpected news. She's awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday! I said I had a chapter, and here it is! Originally it was sort of short, but then it just got longer, so it's like...a good length, I feel like. Yeah. Alas, I'm sorry, Peter and Danny still aren't together in any of these scenes...but they're still fun! I swear! Just read them...you'll see..

_ Chapter Fourteen: A Princess and a Future Princess _

Danny was in Clockwork’s workshop, bent over his desk. He was unravelling a paradox with careful, precise fingers. It wasn’t  _ technically  _ the paradox itself, it was a visual display of the paradox created by Clockwork’s instruments, but same difference. The problem was, as per usual, the red thread. Well, more accurately, the problem was being represented by a red thread that seemed to be pulsing, almost alive, moving and changing just when Danny thought he had it fixed. It was tangled in the other threads, which were in varying colors, many of which Danny hadn’t even known  _ existed _ before he became a ghost. He looked around hazily, selecting a small metal tool akin to tweezers, and carefully manipulated a purple cord out of the tangle. 

It looped around when he released it, but was no longer part of the problem. Finally. He had been trying to undo that one for way too long. Once, he thought he’d gotten it, but then a green cord had appeared to take its place and made everything worse. Then, he had to undo the green cord to even get  _ back  _ to the purple cord, and well, it was a lot of work was all.

He set the metal tool down in favor of a magnifying glass, spinning the three dimensional knot to figure out what to work on next. That blue thread there seemed suspicious, he decided, and went for the tweezer things again. A gentle hand on his wrist stopped him.

“You’ve been at this for a while,” Clockwork said, and his voice was gentle, fond, a little amused.

Danny looked around, finding the green clock at the front of his desk that kept time with Amity Park. He had been working on this paradox the whole day, apparently. It was a little past nine at night, which wasn’t terribly late, but considering he’d arrived at Long Now a little after seven that morning…

“You should sleep,” Clockwork added, gently taking the magnifying glass from Danny’s hand and setting it on the table.

Danny yawned, rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t think he’d been tired a few minutes ago, but now that Clockwork mentioned it, he could hardly stay awake.

“Good idea,” he mumbled, leaning against Clockwork.

Clockwork ruffled his hair and drifted down, smiling softly as Danny wrapped his arms around him like an octopus.

“‘M sleepy,” Danny reiterated, fisting his hands in Clockwork’s robes. His legs had turned into his tail at some point, and that now joined his arms in wrapping around Clockwork.

Clockwork chuckled softly. “I can see that. Let’s get you to bed, then. We have a big day tomorrow,” he answered, wrapping his arms around Danny and lifting him gently.

“‘Mkay,” Danny mumbled, burying his face in Clockwork’s robes as they moved through Long Now.

They arrived at Danny’s room, and Clockwork had no illusions Danny would actually sleep unless he stayed. Which wasn’t the worst fate. He smiled as he pulled the covers back and laid down with Danny on top of him, making a soft purring noise, already asleep. Not a bad way to spend the night at all.

Danny woke up slowly, the gentle blue and green lights of Long Now swirling behind his closed eyelids. He was curled up on top of Clockwork, his limbs tangled in Clockwork’s robes. Danny didn’t move, comfortably tucked into a cocoon of blankets and robes and safety.

“There’s something I want you to do today,” Clockwork said, stroking his hand through Danny’s hair. How he even found Danny’s head in the mess of blankets would remain forever a mystery.

“What is it?” Danny asked.

“Do you remember our trip to Wakanda?”

“Of course,” Danny answered, wondering where Clockwork was going with this.

“The Ancients have been conducting negotiations with Wakanda regarding a closer relationship between us. Things are rapidly changing around us, and it would benefit all of us to help each other.”

“That makes sense,” Danny offered, cautiously.

Clockwork nodded. “It does. The Ancients have decided to extend an olive branch of sorts. Wakandan scientists have, for many years, wanted to study ectoplasm. We’ve decided to let them. Princess Shuri, specifically. And we would like you to help her.”

“Help her,” Danny repeated, skeptically.

“Indeed. You are the closest thing we have to an expert in the subject, scientifically speaking,” Clockwork said, undeterred. 

Danny huffed under his blanket nest, then he sighed. “Alright. When are we leaving?”

“As soon as you’re ready,” Clockwork answered, unfairly pleased with himself.

Danny getting ready took more time than he necessarily needed. He wasn’t scared or anything just...a little nervous maybe. And he was  _ comfortable  _ when Clockwork started that conversation, so if he dozed a little longer before he even started getting ready, that was his business. Now, he was staring into the mirror in his room in Long Now, holding a cloak up in each hand.

He had a lot of cloaks. Some of them were patterned, others were plain. A few were protective, others more mundane. They had all been gifts from someone at some point or another. Right now, he was holding up the cloak that had started the whole cloak gift thing. Nocturne had started it, of course, with a cloak that honestly looked like a piece of the night sky contained in a piece of fabric. There were stars and lazily swirling galaxies and a myriad of colors. It was amazing, but Danny wasn’t sure if it would be too much. The other one he was considering was one Clockwork had given him, a solid color cloak the same deep purple as Clockwork’s own robes. It was less fancy, but also less exciting.

He weighed them in his hands. They both had protective properties that were about equal, but the one Clockwork had given him was more...sentient, almost? Apparently it was the ghostly sister of some magic sorcerer cloak that Danny forgot the name of. So that was cool. And it made him feel better to have a friend with him, even if the friend was a sort of sentient ghost cloak. He put that one one and hung the other one back up. He took a deep breath and floated down the stairs to meet Clockwork.

* * *

When Shuri had been told a ghost expert on ectoplasm was going to come help her with her study of the substance, she wasn’t sure what to expect. An older ghost, maybe, some sort of dead scientist. Someone wise and exceptionally boring, probably, she decided. That was who she was ready for when T’Challa called her to tell her the ghost she would be working with had arrived with the ectoplasm.

So she was pleasantly surprised to see one of the two ghosts she had met before. The boy with shock white hair and toxic green eyes and a jumpsuit and now a deep purple cloak wrapped around his shoulders. He was holding a navy blue box that was bigger than his head. T’Challa had left as soon as Shuri had walked in, probably because of his weird anti-ghost powers that he didn’t seem to have good control over. The boy noticed her and floated down from where he had been looking out a window, letting his feet hover just above the ground. He offered her a smile and a nod.

“Princess Shuri, it’s nice to see you again. I’m Phantom, Clockwork’s apprentice.” 

His voice wasn’t really high or low, but it was clear and lilting in an accent she didn’t quite recognize, and it seemed to carry and fill the room and then echo back to her a moment later. It sent involuntary shivers up her spine, but she smiled at him anyway. At least he seemed like he could be fun, even if she doubted he was an expert on ectoplasm. 

“Welcome to Wakanda, Phantom. How about I show you to my lab and we can get started on the ectoplasm?” Shuri asked, nodding at the box in his hands.

“Sounds good,” Phantom agreed. “Lead the way.”

* * *

When he saw the lab, Danny whistled, impressed. “Nice lab,” he complimented.

“Thanks,” Shuri answered, bouncing with excitement and waving at a clear workspace. “We can work here.”

Danny set the box he was carrying down on the indicated table. His cloak tightened around his shoulders protectively. It was comforting, in the weird way that a sentient piece of clothing could be comforting.

“There are six major types of ectoplasm we’ve been able to categorize, and there are some sub groups within that, so I just brought some of everything. Clockwork wasn’t sure what exactly you would want to do with it,” Danny offered, opening the lid of the chest.

“It’s all labeled,” he continued, pulling out racks of vials. “We use a color coding system normally, but we labelled them in writing, too.”

“I thought you were the apprentice of the master of time?” Shuri asked, and Danny could hear the skepticism in her voice. He refused to let it bother him.

“I’m many things, Princess Shuri. Clockwork’s apprentice is just one of them. Though that has given me a significant amount of time to master other skills,” he answered, diplomatically, as he set out the test tubes of ectoplasm.

“I see,” Shuri answered. She clapped her hands together. “So, where should we start? What should I know before I start running tests?”

“I have a chart. All ectoplasm is energized or non-energized, and sentient or non-sentient. Energized ectoplasm varies in energy level, so we albel those on a scale from one to ten, one being the least energized and ten being the most energized. Likewise, there are varying levels of sentience in the sentient ectoplasm. Since there’s a lot of ectoplasm that’s both energized and sentient, for sentience we use roman numerals instead of the arabic number system. It’s the same otherwise though, one is the least sentient and ten is the most sentient,” Danny explained, having already put them in order according to the chart he handed Shuri.

She studied it, studied the ectoplasm, and smiled at him. “We have a lot of work to do, then.”

* * *

“Wait, so what’s the difference between lair ectoplasm and basic ectoplasm? Shouldn’t they be the same thing?” Shuri asked, a few hours later. She had wildly underestimated both Phantom’s knowledge and his ability to keep up with her intelligence.

“Basic ectoplasm isn't energized, that’s the difference. It’s the only type of ectoplasm that’s non-energized and non-sentient. It’s usually found mostly in the atmosphere of the Realms, but sometimes after a large group of ghosts have been in the material world they leave behind basic ectoplasm. Like after the ghost battle in New York, there was a lot of basic ectoplasm left there, because the ghosts keeping it energized left,” Phantom answered, waving his hands wildly.

“I get it, because Lair ectoplasm is energized because of the ghost’s energy in the lair, but it’s not sentient because it was basic ectoplasm that a ghost asserted their will over,” Shuri answered, typing notes.

Phantom grinned at her. “Exactly.”

* * *

Peter was swinging through New York. Because wasn’t that how this always started? A portal opened. It was small, big enough for a person to fit through but not a horde of ghosts. That was...somewhat reassuring? Peter landed on the roof nearest to it and waited. A moment later, a ghost girl flew out of the portal. She looked like Phantom, Peter thought. Same features, same outfit type, same general build, she was just...a she. And she was looking right at him. She flew down and landed on the roof across from Peter, actually landed, instead of the weird hover that Phantom always does.

“I’m Ellie, Phantom’s sister. Well, one of them,” she introduced, sticking her gloved hand out.

Peter shook it. “I’m Spider-Man,” he answered, a little unsure how to respond.

Ellie laughed. “I figured. The superhero suit sort of gave it away. Plus, Phantom talks about you,” she said.

“He does?” Peter asked, blushing under the mask. “He never told us about you.”

And oh, he probably shouldn’t have said that, but Ellie just laughed and waved him off.

“Phantom has a lot of sisters, I’m not surprised he doesn’t talk about every single one of us. But I came here looking for you, actually.”

“You did?” Peter asked, startled. “Why?”

Ellie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I met this ghost, right? And he seems sort of familiar somehow, but I don’t really keep up with the news like Phantom does, so I’m not sure if he’s just like a recently dead politician or something like that. But he’s young, for a ghost, and he’s fast. Like, really fast. But he runs, instead of flying, which is just  _ weird.  _ And then he says his name is Pietro, and that sounds super familiar, so I looked him up, and I’m pretty sure it’s Pietro Maximoff, like Wanda’s brother Pietro Maximoff. And I  _ was  _ going to harass Phantom about it, or maybe Scarlett, but they’re both off on some super-secret missions and Clockwork is stuck in a meeting for like a million years, so I thought,  _ who else do I know that knows Wanda?  _ And, well, you. Which, I guess I don’t technically know you, but from what Phantom’s said you seemed like you’d probably help me anyway.”

“So let me get this straight,” Peter began. “You  _ found  _ Pietro Maximoff’s ghost, and everyone else was busy, so you thought you’d see if I would help you since I know Wanda, even though you and I have never met?”

Ellie nodded. “Yeah, that about sums it up,” she agreed.

Peter nodded. “Alright. Um. Cool, cool. What can I do to help, though? I thought dead ghosts don’t remember their lives?”

“Usually they don’t, but there are exceptions to that. It’s kind of like...amnesia victims, I guess,” Ellie began, waving her arms enthusiastically. “Sometimes they can remember, if they’re around familiar people and places and the people helping them have a whole lot of patience. I wasn’t really thinking of introducing Wanda and Pietro  _ right now  _ or anything, because I was going to try taking Pietro to some familiar places before he’s with anyone who knew him when he was alive. But I just wanted Wanda to know, I guess, so she has time to try and process and wrap her head around it before she sees him, so that when she sees him, she’ll know what to expect.”

Peter nodded along. “That makes sense. Do you think Wanda would be able to help him with her powers? She can manipulate people’s thoughts, but I don’t know if she could do it on a ghost.”

Ellie “hmmed” thoughtfully. “I’d say if he wanted her to she could, but let’s maybe save that for after the processing and the gradual introduction back to places Pietro knows, fair enough?”

“Yeah yeah, that makes sense. I can call Mister Stark and ask if Wanda’s around, if that works?”

“Works for me,” Ellie agreed.

Peter nodded and wandered away a few steps so he would at least have the illusion of privacy. “Karen, call Mister Stark.”

He answered on the second ring. “What’s up, kid?”

“So I just met another one of Phantom’s sisters. Not Scarlett, her name is Ellie, and she’s eerily similar to Phantom. Like, she could seriously be his female clone or something,” Peter reported.

“Okay,” Tony agreed, probably wondering why this was important right now.

“And she came to find me, because I guess Phantom talks about me, and get this, she met Pietro Maximoff’s ghost. Wanda’s brother.”

“Oh wow.”

“I know, right? And she wants to tell Wanda, so she can process, so at some point she can introduce them and Wanda won’t like flip out because Pietro only sort of remembers her since he’s a dead ghost and Ellie is trying to help him get his memories back but it could take a long time and Wanda should know,” Peter rambled, waving his hands excitedly.

“She should,” Tony agreed, softly. “She’s at the Tower,” he said, after a pause. “You can bring Ellie here to talk to her. Just be careful, okay? Wanda can be unpredictable sometimes, and she doesn't have the best control of her powers.”

“We will be. Thanks, Mister Stark!” Peter chirped.

“You’re welcome, kid. I’ll see you later for lab time, right?”

“Of course,” Peter agreed, because it was Saturday, and that meant lab days with Tony. 

“Alright. See you then, Pete.”

“See you then!”

Peter turned back to Ellie. “He said Wanda’s at the tower and we can go there and talk to her,” he reported.

Ellie bounced up into the air a few feet. “Alright, lead the way!”

Peter grinned and whooped as he flipped backwards off the building, catching himself with a web at the last second and swinging towards the tower. Ellie flew above him, weaving through buildings and making loops and random flips in the air. Peter smiled watching her. He’d never really gotten to do this with Phantom, him swinging through the city while Phantom flies, but after doing it with Ellie he thinks it would be fun. As much as Ellie seemed like Phantom, she also seemed inexplicably younger, more carefree. She laughed to herself as the wind whipped her hair back, and she screamed as she dodged out of the way of buildings. Peter guessed that she must be the younger of the two, though he’s not sure quite how that works with ghosts. Maybe that’s not fair, since he’s really only ever interacted with Phantom in battles and meetings, but his gut feeling is that he’s right.

The tower came into view, looming over Manhattan, and Peter yelled up to Ellie and waved at it. She gave him a thumbs up in return and did another flip. There weren’t any buildings quite as tall as the Tower right around it, so Peter had to work more to get up high before he got too close. He was still missing a bit of height, but he’d gotten good at the swing jump off his last web and the drop in his stomach as he barely made it to the roof. He landed in a crouch and turned around to see Ellie grinning at him, her hair somehow the exact same as it was before, despite the wind blowing violently around them.

He waved her over to the door and pressed his thumb against the scanner. Even with his glove on, it clicked and opened for him. Once they were inside and he could hear again, he turned to Ellie.

“That was fun,” she said, bouncing on her toes but otherwise with both feet on the ground.

Peter smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, it was,” he agreed, starting down the hallway.

Ellie kept pace with him, still grinning wildly.

“Friday, where’s Wanda?” Peter asked.

“Wanda Maximoff is in the common room,” Friday answered.

“Thanks,” Peter chirped.

“Of course,” Friday answered.

“Who, is that AI tech?” Ellie asked, as they stepped into the elevator.

“Yeah, that’s Friday, Mister Stark’s AI.”

“Phantom  _ said  _ there was an actually intelligent AI in the Tower, but everyone else is just so far off from AI tech that I thought he was messing with me, but that is  _ so cool!”  _ Ellie exclaimed, as the elevator started moving down.

Peter laughed. “Yeah, I think it’s awesome too. I mean, no one else is even  _ close  _ to good AI tech, and Mister Stark just has it installed in every room.”

“Power move much?” Ellie joked.

Peter chuckled. “I know, right!”

The elevator doors opened and Peter led Ellie out onto the common floor. Natasha was sitting on the couch next to Clint, reading a book. Clint had his feet in her lap, watching something on a tablet. Steve was humming as he made something on the stove, and Wanda was sitting at the table working on something on a tablet.

“Hi everyone!” Peter greeted with a wave.

Everyone turned to them. Clint was the first to react. “What is it with you and ghosts, kid?”

Peter shrugged. “Dunno. Guess I’m just more fun than the rest of you.”

Natasha chuckled and Clint rolled his eyes. Ellie guffawed, and all attention turned to her. She waved.

“Hi, I’m Ellie, Phantom’s sister. Well, one of them, at any rate. If you think Spidey collects ghost friends fast, you should see how fast Phantom collects new siblings.”

Steve laughed. “I’m Steve. It’s nice to meet you, Ellie,” he offered, waving, still stirring whatever it was he was cooking.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” Ellie returned.

“We were actually hoping to talk to Wanda about something,” Peter announced.

Wanda, who had been mostly ignoring the conversation, looked up. “What about?” she asked.

“You had a twin brother that died, right? Pietro? Really fast, terrible sense of humor, hated pineapple?” Ellie asked, with a surprisingly lack of tact.

Wanda just seemed perplexed, thankfully, not angry. “Yes, I did. Why?”

“Well I met his ghost the other day-”

“You  _ what?”  _ Steve demanded, dropping his spoon. He cursed under his breath as he fished it out of the hot pan.

“Yeah, it took me a while to realize who it was, since y’know how dead ghosts don’t remember their lives usually, but he seemed really familiar and when he said he thought his name was Pietro I looked him up and it’s definitely him,” Ellie finished.

Wanda was quiet. “Wanda?” Steve asked, softly. “You okay?”

“He’s..” Wanda trailed off. “He’s a ghost?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ellie answered, softly. “He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers a little bit, and I think if I work with him for a bit he’ll remember everything.”

“That can happen?” Clint asked.

Ellie nodded. “I told Spidey, some dead ghosts can never regain their memories, but some have a few memories from their lives but they’re sort of jumbled and out of order. They’re similar to amnesia victims, in that case. If you’re gentle and you work with them they can usually regain almost all, if not all, of their memories from when they were alive. But it takes time and patience.”

“He...I could have him back?” Wanda asked, teary, eyed.

Ellie softened, smiled at her, walked over to sit next to her at the table. 

“Yeah,” she said, softly. “You can. You’ve gotta trust me, though, and be patient, okay? We don’t want to overwhelm him with expectations.”

Wanda nodded, determined, scrubbed at her eyes. “I understand. What can I do?”

“Anything you can tell me about him, places he liked to go, things he liked, things he didn’t, people he knew, anything like that will help when I’m working with him,” Ellie said.

Peter, sensing this was going to take a while, sat down on Nat’s other side on the couch. She tucked her arm around his shoulders and he rested his head on her shoulder.

“Everything alright, little spider?” she asked him, as Wanda’s soft voice washed over them in the background.

Peter nodded against her shoulder. “Yeah, just a lot, with Pietro. I mean I never knew him, but…”

“I think you’d get along well, though I didn’t know him long either,” Nat reassured.

Peter hummed against her shoulder. “I think I’m going to fall asleep on you,” he admitted, yawning.

Natasha chuckled gently, pulled a blanket off the couch to tuck around him.

“That’s alright, little spiders need their rest.”

Peter huffed against her shoulder, but he was already falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter...I feel like I stole it from something but I don't think I did? Idk man. The Princess if Shuri, obviously, and the future princess is Ellie cause when Danny becomes ghost King that makes Ellie ghost princess. I think. We're goin with that, anyway. Also, Pietro shouldn't have died, but I didn't start the fic early enough to prevent it and I didn't want to so I compromised and made him a ghost. Also, WandaVision is KILLING ME. That is all. Thanks for reading!


	15. Phantom is Responsible™ and Ellie and Peter are Not™

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phantom does hard stuff. Peter and Ellie mess with people. There are lots of emotions. Warning: excessive dialogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter of dialogue, some of which is kind of repetitive. You've been warned. Also, I still haven't gotten Danny and Peter in the same room, but they're in the same city! So we're getting there! That counts for something...right? Maybe not. Anyway.

_ Chapter Fifteen: Phantom is Responsible™ and Ellie and Peter are Not™  _

Tony was in his lab, blaring music, working on suit upgrades. By most people’s standards it wouldn’t be relaxing, but for Tony it always had been. So when his relaxation was interrupted by a ghost dropping into his lab, he wasn’t exactly happy about it. The ghost was Phantom, which was better than if it had been Scarlett, but that didn’t mean the intrusion was welcome.

“I need you to hear me out,” were the first words out of Phantom’s mouth.

This did not make Tony feel any better. Still, he got a new cup of coffee and sat down on the futon in the corner.

“Alright,” he agreed, propping his feet up.

Phantom drifted over and floated cross-legged in the air across from Tony, over...well, floor. There wasn’t actually any furniture there, but ghosts weren’t bound by that sort of thing, apparently. 

“Do you know who James Buchanan Barnes is?” Phantom asked, after a beat of silence.

“Steve’s old war buddy, yeah. Died falling off a train,” Tony answered.

“Not...exactly,” Phantom hedged.

“Please don’t tell me you found his ghost, too, cause I think Pietro’s is enough already,” Tony retorted.

Phantom blinked at him, once, twice. “Actually, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ellie about that yet. I mean, I knew, because it’s Ellie but...yeah, no. I didn’t meet his ghost. But he is still alive.”

“He’s what?” Tony asked, blinking furiously. Even if Barnes  _ hadn’t  _ died falling off that train, he probably would have died of old age by now, Tony thinks.

“It’s complicated. You said you’d hear me out,” Phantom hedged, and he was so obviously nervous in a way that reminded Tony of Peter when they’d first met.

“And I will,” Tony agreed.

Phantom nodded. “Okay, okay. This is going to seem unrelated, but do you know the story behind Captain America starting to actually fight in the first place? I mean how he went from being a performer to being a soldier, not how he became Captain America in the first place.”

“I do,” Tony said. “Barnes’ regiment got captured by HYDRA, so Steve convinced Peggy Carter and Howard Stark to help him go behind enemy lines and save them. Everyone had given them up for dead by the time they made it back to camp, on foot.”

“Yeah, exactly. Now, the important part of that isn't really a matter of public record. But when HYDRA had Barnes, they experimented on him. And at that time they were working on trying to replicate the super soldier serum. Which they tested on Barnes, among others.”

Tony didn’t want to have as quick a mind as he did in that moment, because the pieces had started slotting into place, and they weren't pretty.

“He didn’t die when he fell,” Tony whispered.

“No,” Phantom said, emotions in his eyes that Tony couldn’t name. “He didn’t.”

There was a moment of silence.

“HYDRA thought the experiments were a bust,” Phantom said, softly. “But they weren’t. The serum just needed to be activated. It takes a surge of adrenaline, pain, fear, emotion, to kick-start it. Steve had the ultraviolet rays. That was painful, adrenaline inducing, emotional. That kick-started it, for him. Bucky had never had anything like that. Until he plummeted off a train.”

“So he survived,” Tony reiterated, mind whirling with the possibilities.

Phantom nodded. “He did. Just barely, though. He lost his left arm in the process. And when no allies came looking for his body, well, someone else found him first.”

Phantom’s voice was grim, and Tony once again cursed the quickness of his mind as nausea settled heavily in his stomach.

“HYDRA found him, didn’t they?” Tony whispered.

Phantom nodded again.

“What happened next?” Tony asked, afraid of the answer, but wanting,  _ needing  _ to know.

“They brainwashed him,” Phantom said, matter-of-factly. He grimaced. “HYDRA had always been good at that, from what I understand, but they were particularly brutal with Bucky. Any sense of self he had, any notion of free will, well….”

“It was all gone,” Tony finished for him.

“Yeah,” Phantom whispered. “It was.”

They were silent again, for a few minutes this time. Tony was processing, or trying to, working through all the implications of what this could mean.

“They made him into a weapon,” Phantom said, and he sounded incomprehensibly bitter about it, which made Tony think it was somehow personal. “They called him ‘The Winter Soldier’ and ‘The Fist of HYDRA’ and ‘The Asset’. Nothing human, nothing individual, just a weapon for them to use. And when they weren’t sending him to kill someone, they put him in cryofreeze.”

“That’s awful,” Tony said.

Phantom nodded again, set his shoulders. “It is. And I need you to remember that. Because this next part will probably bring up a lot of emotions for you, but I need you to remember that Bucky was just HYDRA’s puppet.”

“Okay. I’ll hear you out,” Tony agreed, his stomach sinking now for an entirely different reason.

“There isn't an easy way to say this. The night your parents died, they were transporting an experimental batch of super soldier serum to SHIELD headquarters. HYDRA sent the Winter Soldier in to retrieve it. Your parents were collateral damage, killed by the Winter Soldier in compliance with an order to leave no witnesses. The Winter Soldier, who resembles Bucky Barnes only in that they have the same body, killed your parents.”

Tony’s whole world ground to a stop, just for a minute. Or maybe more time. Possibly less. It was infinite and barely a second, all at the same time. Phantom was watching him with a steady, soft gaze that Tony didn’t know how to interpret. Everything was silent.

“Why are you telling me this?” Tony whispered.

Phantom smiled at him, then, a soft upturn of lips. He looked wistful and bitter all at the same time.

“There are a few reasons. The first is that the enhanced soldier that Steve took down on the Project Insight Helicarriers? That was Bucky. Well, the Winter Soldier, but Bucky. Steve didn’t know. He still doesn’t. HYDRA forces people into masks for a reason, so they can’t be recognized. But somehow, that fight, something Steve said or did, helped Bucky break out of his brainwashing just enough to leave on his own, to start a life, try to understand who he was before and who he is now. Recently, Clockwork sent someone to meet with him. See what we can do to help him. The plan right now is to make sure his brainwashing is gone completely and then see what he wants to do. If that’s to see Steve and join the Avengers, Clockwork and I will fight for that. If it’s to build a quiet life somewhere away from all this chaos and terror and pain, then we’ll fight for that, too. The other reason is because I’ve seen what will happen if I don’t, and it’s not pretty.”

“I….how did you find him?” Tony asked. “Is he okay?” he added.

“Clockwork is the Master of Time. He can find anyone, anywhere, anytime. And, as far as I know, he’s doing alright. Still fighting the brainwashing, which I’m sure isn't fun, but I think he’ll improve once he has help,” Phantom answered.

“Why tell me, though? Why not Steve?” Tony asks.

Phantom shrugs. “I’ll tell Steve, too. But you needed to know, first. And Steve will be harder, because he’ll rush off to try and see Bucky as soon as he knows he’s alive, and it’ll take a lot of patience to explain to him why that’s a bad idea.”

Tony snorts at that thought. “Yeah, you’ve got that right. Good luck there.”

“Oh,” Phantom says. “Thanks, but I don’t plan on going in without backup.” He grins, all teeth, and despite himself, despite the circumstances, despite the revelation, Tony laughs.

* * *

“Have you ever heard of the Winter Soldier?” a voice behind Natasha asked, pulling her out of her training.

No one had been able to sneak up on her in a very long time. Phantom doing so was disconcerting, but she didn’t let that show as he floated down to her eye level.

“I have,” she answered, evenly.

“Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier. Who is very brainwashed. Well, he was. He got away. But also, he killed Tony’s parents when he was brainwashed,” Phantom announced.

Natasha blinked at him once, twice. “Ok,” she said, slowly. “What do you need me to do?”

“I have to tell Steve. And as soon as I do…”

“He’s going to try and rush off and find Barnes without listening to any other part of the story or taking a moment to even consider that that might be a bad idea,” Natasha finished for him.

Phantom nodded. “Exactly. And I already know he doesn’t know me well enough for me to be able to stop him without being forceful about it, and I don’t want to go there unless I absolutely have to.”

“You think you  _ could  _ stop him with force?” Natasha asked, skeptically.

Phantom flashed a grin at her. “I have no doubt I could, Miss Romanoff. After all, I have mind control as an option up my sleeve. Though I’d probably just ice him to the floor.”

“Ice him?” Natasha asked, curious despite herself.

Phantom didn’t answer verbally, but he held up his hand and a perfectly shaped crystal formed in it. He tossed it to her, and she caught it on reflex. It was cool in her hand, but not frigid like she’d expect of ice.

“Ghost ice will only melt if the creator takes their focus off it. You could throw that directly into the sun, and unless I let it melt, it wouldn’t,” Phantom explained.

“It seems like it would make a good weapon.”

Phantom chuckled. “Oh believe me, it does. But it’s also good to keep people places. Just ice their feet to the floor and they’re not going anywhere until you let them up.”

“I can see where that would be useful,” Natasha allowed, holding the ice crystal in her closed fist.

“Yeah. Anyway, will you help me with Steve? Because he seems to trust you more than most of the people around here, and you might be the only one that can help me get logic into his brain once he knows.”

Natasha chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll help you. But I’m going to need the whole story.”

And so he told her.

* * *

“What has Phantom been so busy with, anyway?” Peter asked, staring up at the blue sky, laying on his back on a rooftop.

“Stuff for Clockwork, probably. That’s usually what it is,” Ellie, who was laying next to him on the rooftop, answered.

“What’s the deal with Clockwork, anyway? I mean, I know Phantom is his apprentice and there was something in there about being his sort of grandson, but like-”

Peter was cut off abruptly by Ellie laughing. “What?” he asked, disgruntled.

“Oh, man, I can’t believe he gave you the apprentice line is all. He  _ is  _ Clockwork’s apprentice don’t get me wrong, that’s not a lie or anything. It’s just that Clockwork is...he might be the most important person in Phantom’s life, like, ever. Scarlett was the first, but Clockwork is..” Ellie trailed off, with a wistful smile. “Clockwork was the one that helped him figure things out. Piece himself together after it all fell apart. Taught him how to be himself, or how to be other people. Scarlett helped him master his powers, helped him gain confidence, but Clockwork is the one that taught him how to be vulnerable. How to love people and let them love him back without that constant fear that everything was going to blow up in his face, because everything  _ always  _ blew up in his face. So it’s not surprising that when Clockwork asks him to do literally anything his only ever answer is ‘yes.’”

“Oh,” Peter said, startled.

“Yeah. It’s a thing. But, y’know, if you want to hang out with him I’m sure he’d want to. He’s just a liiiiittlle bit busy right now. And he can be just a bit awkward about, y’know, actually interacting with people his own age. Or sort of his own age. It’s a whole thing. But he’s excited he met you, I can tell you that much,” Ellie said, grinning.

“I don’t have any way to contact him,” Peter admitted, sheepishly.

“Oh, is that all?” Ellie asked, perking up. “Well,  _ that  _ I can help you with.”

“You can?” Peter asked, hopefully.

Ellie grinned, floating up so she was looking down at him. “Indeed I can. Observe.”

And she stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled, high pitched enough that Peter was sure a normal human wouldn’t be able to hear it. A moment later, a tiny little portal opened and a little green...ghost dog? Drifted out. The dog flounced its way right over to Ellie, who immediately bent down to start petting it.

“Who’s a good ghost puppy? You are. Oh, yes you are,” Ellie said, in a baby voice.

Peter smiled as he sat up next to her, the ghost puppy wriggling on her lap.

“This,” Ellie said, holding the puppy up towards Peter with her hands around the puppy’s waist, “is Cujo. He’s a very good boy.”

Cujo barked in agreement, and Peter chuckled and reached out to pet him. Ellie put him down and Cujo jumped into Peter’s lap, wriggling his little green body for all he was worth. Peter laughed as Cujo tried to lick his face through his mask.

“Cujo, this is Spider-Man. Spidey. He’s a friend of ours,” Ellie said, very seriously.

Cujo yipped again and licked Peter’s face with renewed vigor. 

Peter laughed, rubbing at the dog’s sides. “Hi, Cujo. You’re just a little bundle of energy, aren’t you?” he asked.

Cujo yipped in agreement.

“In addition to being absolutely adorable and a very good boy, Cujo’s very good at finding people and following instructions. What I’m saying is, he’s a very good messenger dog,” Ellie explained, reaching over and patting the dog affectionately on the head. “And, if you ask nicely, he’ll even take you places. Or to people.”

“How?” Peter asked. “He’s so small.”

“Not always,” Ellie answered, and that mischievous grin was back. She lifted Cujo off Peter’s lap and set him down beside them. “Alright, Cujo,” she said, with great enthusiasm. “Get big!”

And, with an almost comical “pop!”, Cujo was big. Maybe about the size of an elephant, if Peter had to guess. He was still wagging his tail.

“Okay, that’s awesome!” Peter exclaimed, grinning madly.

Ellie patted him on the shoulder. “You just stick with me, kid, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” she drawled.

Then they both broke down laughing. 

Ellie gave him a whistle. It made the same high-pitched noise that she had made with her fingers in her mouth. She agreed with him that, yes, most humans couldn’t hear it. It was, apparently, a ghost frequency. Peter wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that he could hear it. Ellie also showed him how to get Cujo to carry messages, and how to get him to take Peter places or to people. Now, she was showing him how to get Cujo to bring people to him. Which was, apparently, not the most fun way to travel.

“Who should we use as an example?” Ellie asked, contemplative.

“We could do Mister Stark,” Peter offered, mischievously.

Ellie laughed. “Alright, that’s an idea there. Do you have anything of his? Anything he’s touched? Cujo does better when he has something like that to go off.”

“Would my suit work? He made it,” Peter asked.

“Eh, that’s probably close enough,” Ellie decided.

So Cujo sniffed his suit, popped back down to puppy sized, and dove through another portal. It couldn't have taken more than a minute or so for Cujo to come diving back out of the portal, dragging Tony Stark behind him by the ankle. Tony, who looked both terrified and disgruntled until he spotted Peter.

“Really, kid?” he griped, as Cujo let go of his ankle and went over to Ellie for pats. And praise.

Peter grinned at him, even though he couldn’t see it under the mask.

“What even was that?” Tony continued, getting to his feet and brushing his shirt off.

“That was Cujo. He’s a ghost dog. And he’s a very good boy,” Peter answered, with great amusement.

“Why? What?” Tony asked, looking around and spotting Ellie petting Cujo.

“We needed a test subject. Ellie is showing me how to get Cujo to do things,” Peter explained.

“Of course she is,” Tony grumbled, tapping a few buttons on his phone. “Next time, drag Steve through all the portals. Or Clint. Thor, even. Anyone but me. Okay?” 

Peter frowned. Something was up. His mentor was usually a lot snarkier than this. And he seemed...upset?

“Sorry, Mister Stark,” Peter answered. Then, “Is everything alright?”

Tony turned to him with a tired but genuine smile and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be alright, Underoos. Just some news I wasn’t expecting,” he explained.

An Iron Man suit landed on the roof and opened, and Tony walked over and stepped into it. 

“See you around, Spider-Man,” he said, and flew off.

Peter turned back to Ellie, who had a faraway look on her face. 

“He’ll be alright,” she said. “Phantom just told him some stuff he wasn’t expecting and it brought up a lot of emotions. I think he’s still processing. But he’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Peter agreed, because he wasn’t really sure what to make of the faraway look in her eyes or the fact that she was talking like she was in a dream.

In an instant, she snapped out of it and her face went back to its usual sunny grin. “Thor is on Asgard, right?” she asked, with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Peter liked where this idea was going. “Yeah, as far as I know he is.”

Ellie’s grin mirrored his own. “You don’t have anything he’s touched, by any chance?”

Peter thought about it. “Sorry, I don’t actually think I do.”

Ellie shrugged, unfettered. “Cujo’s smart. I think he just might find him anyway.”

* * *

Steve stared down at the paper in frustration. He was  _ trying  _ to draw the scene before him, Vision sitting on the couch in the common room with Wanda curled up against his side, fast asleep. But he couldn’t get the lines just right, and Wanda’s hair was just impossible to capture in charcoal because so much of its personality came from the vibrant red color. He was frowning down at the paper, as if somehow he could make the drawing better through sheer force of will, when the elevator doors opened. Natasha and Phantom stepped out, side-by-side, and started walking towards him. Well, Phantom was floating, but same difference.

Steve set his charcoal down. “What’s going on?” he asked, voice pitched low so he didn’t wake Wanda up.

Phantom smiled at him, not the sharp grin full of teeth that he usually directed towards Steve, but a soft, sympathetic smile. That didn’t bode well at all. Natasha had her poker face on.

“Steve, we need to talk,” she said, voice soft.

He nodded. “Okay. Just not here.” His eyes slid to Wanda and Vision.

Natasha followed his gaze. “Of course,” she assured. “We can go to my floor, come on.”

So Steve followed them into the elevator and down to Natasha’s floor. He had been there before, so he didn’t take the time to look around. Instead, he sat at the seat at the table that Natasha had indicated and let pour two cups of hot coffee. She set one in front of herself and one in front of him. Natasha herself sat across from him, and Phantom sat next to her.

“I have some news for you, and you’re probably not going to like it,” he started.

Steve already didn’t like it. He felt jittery, sitting at Natasha’s kitchen table and cardling the mug of coffee.

“Okay,” he agreed, because whatever it was he obviously needed to know.

“Have you ever heard of the Winter Soldier?” Phantom asked.

“No,” Steve answered.

“He was a legend, in the intelligence community,” Natasha began. “A lot of people thought he was a myth. I never did.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask what this had to do with him, but Natasha held up a hand, silencing him before he could even speak.

“I knew he was real, because I met him when I was young. In the Red Room, where I was trained...where I was raised, there was a man that came to teach us. His left arm was metal, and they always made him wear a mask. No one could ever beat him, but we learned from him. They called him many things, never a name. ‘Winter Soldier’ or ‘Asset’ or just ‘Soldier.’ He took another girl and I on missions, sometimes. He never spoke, always followed orders to the letter. Until this one mission. We had finished already, and we were supposed to be reporting back to base. But instead he took us to this little ice cream shop on the corner, let us get whatever we wanted. He didn’t get anything, he was still wearing the mask. But we ate outside at this little cafe table in the sun, and that was the most free I ever felt growing up. He never spoke much, but when he did, he called us his ‘little ballerinas’. I didn’t understand until much later that as much as he was able to, he cared about us. Cared about us being happy, getting to feel that freedom. There’s a reason I’m telling you this, but you have to promise to hear us out and not go rushing through the door as soon as we tell you.”

Natasha fixed a hard stare on him, and for a moment all Steve could do was meet her eyes. She knew how to get him to agree to things, to appeal to his curiosity and then refuse to give answers until he did what she wanted. It worked every time.

“I’ll listen. I won’t go running out. I promise.”

Natasha nodded to him, then turned to Phantom. Steve realized he was the one that was going to be taking over the conversation, so he shifted his focus.

“The reason that Miss Romanoff told you that story is simple. You knew the man who became the Winter Soldier. His name is James Buchanan Barnes. ANd he’s still alive.”

Steve understood the promise not to run out, now. If he hadn’t made it, he would already be moving, calling in favors, doing anything and everything he could to find Bucky. As it was, he let the urge wash over him, forced himself to take a sip of coffee because suddenly he was cold, and determined to hear Phantom out.

“When HYDRA had Bucky, before you saved him, they were doing experiments on him and some of the others. They were trying to recreate the Super Soldier Serum. They succeeded, they just didn’t know it at the time. The serum has to be activated by a surge of adrenaline and strong emotions, namely fear and pain. You had that when they turned on the ultraviolet rays. 

“Bucky had that when he fell off the train. He survived, just barely. He lost his left arm in the process. And then HYDRA found him again. They replaced his left arm with a high-tech metal prosthetic. And they brainwashed him. Any free will he had was gone. He was strong enough, though, that it would wear off over time. He’d be able to break through a little bit, and then they’d start over. But even with that, he was their best weapon. I’ll spare you the details, but essentially they sent him on missions and stuck him in cryofreeze when he got back. That’s the reason he’s still alive. 

“You actually fought him, on the Project Insight Helicarriers. Something about you let him break free from his brainwashing again, a little more than he had before. That, combined with the chaos within HYDRA of being discovered, allowed him to get away. To establish a new home and a new life for himself and try to figure out who he was and who he is now and what to do with that. As far as I know, he’s still fighting the brainwashing, but he’s okay. He’s alive and he’s okay.”

“Do you know where he is?” Steve asked, voice choked with emotion, because he would do  _ anything  _ to see Bucky alive again, to hold him, to tell him everything would be okay now.

“I do,” Phantom answered, evenly. Then, something like regret flashed in his eyes. “But I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“What do you mean you’re not allowed to tell me?” Steve demanded, angry now. Who was a ghost to keep him from Bucky?

“Clockwork sent Kendra and Scarlett to meet with him. They're still there, actually. They’re going to help him break his brainwashing, and then whatever he wants, we’ll help him get. But right now, even the few people that know he’s alive knowing that is dangerous for him. If HYDRA finds him again…” Phantom let the sentence hang in the air.

Steve deflated.

“At any rate, we’re doing it this way for a reason. As long as they can still activate his brainwashing, he’s in danger. That’s the priority before anything else. Once his brainwashing is gone I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Phantom promised.

“Okay,” Steve nearly whispered. “Okay.”

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Bucky started, staring across the table from Kendra Paris. “You want me to let you take me to Wakanda, which is secretly really technologically advanced, so that the Princess of Wakanda, who is a teenager but still smarter than basically everyone, can get the HYDRA crap out of my head with the help of Danny, who knows very little about neurology but has steady hands?”

Kendra smiled at him. “That about sums it up, yes,” she agreed.

“I’m in.”

* * *

Thor was on Asgard. It was very peaceful on Asgard. Until a green ghost dog grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him away through a portal while Loki laughed in the background. Staring up at a masked superhero and a ghost girl from where he landed on his back on the roof of a building was just the cherry on top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my brain the like last two baby scene of Bucky and Thor are like mid and post credit scenes in Marvel movies and that's that. Comments/questions/concerns/incoherent screams? Drop them in the comment section! (Please Stand By)

**Author's Note:**

> The first, like, five chapters of this are seriously just like exposition. I'm sorry, but also not really. I do not have anyone as of now to proofread this for me, so if you come across any mistakes please let me know so I can fix them. Also, if anyone is interested in proofreading this for me before I post chapters, just give me a holler. Help would be greatly appreciated, and you'd get chapters early. On the subject of chapters, this does not currently have an actual update schedule. I don't do update schedules. But I do my best to post somewhat consistently and to give a heads up if a story is going to be sitting unworked on for a million years. I make no promises, but I do my best. If you're still reading this, thanks! See you next chapter.


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